ARCHIVE GIG – The Damned, Stuntface @ Central Station, Wrexham
(review + pix by neil crud)
Captain Sensible & Dave Vanian share a moment
Good grief! How deaf? That high pitched sound that screams in your ears for the next day tells you it was very loud. The eardrums will still be reverberating into next week! But the pain is worth it for I have a mission during this review to get you to buy 2 CDs; Stuntface‘s ‘The Incredible Unstoppable Titan of Terror’ & The Damned‘s ‘Grave Disorder.’ Two recordings of stunning quality, worthy of a place in your collection. ‘Grave Disorder’ ranks right up there with The Damned’s finest, taking the best elements from the raw punk of the debut LP, the refined glory of ‘Machine Gun Etiquette’, the psychedelic purity of ‘The Black Album’ & ‘Strawberries’ and the gothic subtleties of ‘Phantasmagoria.’ Thankfully the poorer sides of ‘Music for Pleasure’ & ‘Anything’ were omitted.
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Tattoo removal by laser treatment is very painful & very expensive. I’m halfway through a 12 month course & ironically one of the tattoos to be removed is a love heart with The Damned beautifully designed by the side of it. I was 18 at the time & in love with the band; a love affair that hasn’t waned. So in the run up to this gig I’ve been like a little boy who’s just found the keys to the local sweet shop. I’ve grown up with The Damned, ‘Machine Gun Etiquette’ is rated in my Top 5 Albums of all time, & since that 14 year old spikey punk kid witnessed them at the Pier in Colwyn Bay in 1981, I’ve been a changed man ever since, or was it after being buggered by the support band The Anti-Nowhere League?.
Went to Finsbury Park in London to see The Damned celebrate their 10th anniversary. A great show that started around midnght last night when the National Coach driver refused to let us on; even though we’d booked tickets, because we were punks. This is how the story unfolded…
