I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: May 3, 2025] The Damned

I saw the Damned at Coney Island High with my friend Garry on Feb 6, 1998.  I don’t really remember all that much about it.  I wasn’t a huge fan at the time, but I do think it’s cool I got to see them.

I hadn’t really considered seeing them again, but when they toured in 2023 I came around to wanting to see them.  I missed that tour (which was for a then new album), and in retrospect I’m glad I did.  That tour was predominantly that new album (and of course a while bunch of older songs too), but this tour was more of a complete retrospective (including some of the new songs too).

And, it featured three of the four original members: singer Dave Vanian, guitarist Captain Sensible and drummer Rat Scabies.  [There’s no point in trying to talk about when who was or wasn’t in the band as it was a revolving door for a while].  But Paul Gray on bass has been with them since 1980 and Monty Oxymoron has played keyboards with them since 1996 so he’s not exactly a newbie.

So I don’t know a ton of songs by The Damned.  I have a few of their albums but the people around me knew everything they played.

Nevertheless, they played a fantastic selection of songs and it was so much fun to see Captain Sensible in his striped sweater and the ageless Dave Vanian looking great in his coat and puffy shirt.  And, most impressively–his voice sounded great.

Love Song is one of my favorite songs of their so I was super psyched that they opened with it.  And I was a little surprised at how rowdy the crowd got–not unexpected because the music is fast and furious.  But the crowd was pretty old (except for the young punks up front).  They kept up the fry with Machine Gun Etiquette and then moved on to three from The Black Album–so the music changed style a lot over the next three tracks.

I seem to go to a ot of shows where I get to hear a rare track that makes the crowd go berserk but which I don’t know.  So they played Is It a Dream, for the first time since 1985 (!!!!!!).  But I didn’t know it,  I also would have preferred they played Plan 9 Channel 7 since I know it and they’d been playing it.  Having said that, Dave’s voice sounded great on this crooning song.

After playing some mid 80s song they returned to Machine Gun Etiquette (a few more times, actually).

They played a couple of the “new” songs like Beware of the Clown, which fit the tone of the show perfectly.  I should check out that album.

They followed this with two fan favorites–their cover of Eloise and their amazing cover of Alone Again Or.  After these slower songs they ripped it up for the end with Noise Noise Noise, Ignite and Neat Neat Neat which made the crowd go insane.  It was a ton of fun.

After a brief break they returned for, appropriately, Curtain Call (although they didn’t play all 17 minutes like on the record).  And they ended the encore with New Rose, which, once again, got everyone super pumped.

But that wasn’t the end.  The band returned once more for a (to me) surprising cover of White Rabbit (although I see it is on their best of albums, so it must be a thing they do).  And they ended with the most anthemic song of destruction: Smash It Up.  No one smashed up anything, but it felt like it could have happened at any time.

I’m so glad I went and I would happily see them again, without waiting 20some years to see them.