Gig review: The Damned at O2 Academy Leeds


As a band, The Damned shouldn’t really work onstage. Essentially – as guitarist Captain Sensible once noted of the punk outfit’s founding line-up with Brian James – “four frontmen all going for it” seeking to grab “more than our fair share of the spotlight”, on paper at least, it could be a recipe for messy ego clashes. Yet, nearly half a century on from the group’s formation, they’ve outlasted all of their peers.
Not only that, in their current guise, with bass player Paul Gray back in the fold, reuniting the band who made two of their most durable LPs, The Black Album and Strawberries, they’re in fine fettle, generating the kind of energy levels that many younger acts could only envy.
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Hide AdTwenty-one songs are packed into their 100-minute set, with the blistering opening numbers Love Song and Machine Gun Etiquette very much a statement of intent as Sensible and Gray, both sporting berets, whirl around the O2 Academy’s stage behind – and sometimes in front of – singer Dave Vanian, dapperly clad in black.


Their early 80s days of gothic noir are revived with crowd pleaser Wait For The Blackout, deeper cut Lively Arts, and a thrilling The History of the World (Part 1), which showcases the keyboard skills of auxilliary member Monty Oxymoron.
Plan 9 Channel 7 has hooks aplenty, while Stranger On The Town is introduced by Sensible as one that the audience – who range in age from veterans to students – is going to like. “It’s about getting thrown out of hotels, and it starts with a bit of jazz,” he says – and sure enough, it proves one of the evening’s highlights.
I Just Can’t Be Happy Today has fans singing along and Vanian precedes Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as a song about a man “who wasn’t very PC – he had a few problems, which I can identify with”. In the introduction to Beware of the Clown Sensible has a pop at Prime Minister Keir Starmer, before it’s time for the dramatic flourishes of their cover of Barry Ryan’s 1969 hit Eloise.
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Hide AdVanian gamely retreats to the side of the stage to provide backing vocals for Sensible’s rendition of Life Goes On, then commands the limelight himself during the Iggy Pop-like The Invisible Man and Ignite.
After a frenetic Neat Neat Neat they could be forgiven for calling it a night, but The Damned are not yet done. Two encores follow, the first of which includes a masterful two-minute drum solo from Rat Scabies and a brutal New Rose. During the second, Sensible closes their anti-festive number There Ain’t No Sanity Clause by ironically wishing everyone a merry Christmas “if that’s possible” then they tear through Smash It Up (Parts 1 and 2) with gusto.
As The Damned’s 50th anniversary fast approaches, this present incarnation shows that the punk torch still burns brightly.
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