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| Captain Sensible and Dave Vanian - Photo by Paul Slattery |
I first saw
The Damned at The Lyceum in 1981, my second ever gig, and it is etched forever in my memory as being one of the best shows I have ever been to. Mind you, at the time I would not have imagined that over 30 years later I'd still be going to see them play and ironically enough the set-list was pretty similar too, with most tracks being taken from "The Black Album" and "Machine Gun Etiquette", so no complaints from me. Tonight's show was a very special celebration of Captain Sensible's 60th birthday along with guests
TV Smith, Tenpole Tudor, Johnny Moped and
Ruts DC.
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| Captain Sensible introduces TV Smith - Photo by Steve Worrall |
I made it just in time to see the Captain introduce
TV Smith, who for the first time in the U.K. was joined by Vom from Dr. & The Medics and Die Toten Hosen on drums. I have only ever seen TV perform alone with an acoustic guitar so Vom added a totally different dimension, a powerful backing to TV's heartfelt songs and it suited the large auditorium of The Forum. We were treated to a selection of his solo songs like "Immortal Rich" and "It's Expensive Being Poor" along with some choice cuts by The Adverts such as "No Time To Be 21" and "Gary Gilmore's Eyes". I missed Tenpole Tudor and Johnny Moped but it was time for
The Damned and they opened up with "Wait For The Blackout" and "Lively Arts" and proceeded to play some of my favorites such as "Stranger on The Town", "Disco Man" and "I Just Can't Be Happy Today". Captain introduced "Happy Talk", "well it's my birthday!" and they play a Punked-up version of his biggest hit. "New Rose" brings the house down and "Neat Neat Neat" closes the main set to wild applause. The encore starts off with "Glad It's All Over" and then at the shout of "Smash It Up" balloons and confetti rain down on the crowd. It was a great set by The Damned and nice to hear a few less well known numbers thrown in.
Ruts DC played a really impressive set too, a mixture of their dub reggae tracks and excellent newer material such as "Mighty Soldier" which was one of my highlights. The band build up to a crowd pleasing selection of Ruts classics such as "Staring At The Rude Boys", "Babylon's Burning" and "In A Rut" and leave the crowd wanting more. Paul Slattery was in the photographers pit and now he has finally cleaned all the confetti from his lens has kindly contributed these great photos...
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| The Damned by Paul Slattery |
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| The Damned by Paul Slattery |
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| The Damned by Paul Slattery |
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| The Damned by Paul Slattery |
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| The Damned by Paul Slattery |
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| The Damned by Paul Slattery |
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| Ruts DC by Paul Slattery |
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| Ruts DC by Paul Slattery |
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| Ruts DC by Paul Slattery |
With thanks to Leigh Heggarty and to Paul Slattery.
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