88. The Damned
Roundhouse
6 June 2015
The Damned have always been a bit like one of their own setlists: half blistering, half baffling. On one hand, you’ve got the original British punk band, the first to release a single, the first to tour America, and the first to demonstrate that punk could actually play its instruments. They were a glorious mess of speed, sneer and style, and like some of their contemporaries in the Pistols or The Clash, The Damned also always brought a little more to the party in those early days. A bit of goth, a bit of glam, and a whole lot of chaos.
But on the other hand, they’ve spent the better part of four decades teetering on the brink of full-blown pantomime. Yes, they helped give birth to goth, but while Bauhaus went moody and mystical and The Sisters of Mercy discovered dry ice and dread, The Damned opted for comedy stage names and novelty singles. At their worst, they’ve sometimes felt like the house band from Carry On Up Camden.
The support act only drove the point home. Johnny Moped, once described by Lemmy as “moronic pub rock”, shuffled onstage like a cautionary tale for heart disease prevention. If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a proto-punk band survives into their seventies on a diet of pork scratchings, Sköl and several packs of Benson & Hedges a day, this was your answer. You could hear the defibrillators being powered up in the wings.
The crowd at the Roundhouse didn’t help matters. It was as if someone had shouted “Alexa, show me a hen party from 1981 that never ended.” Fishnets strained, PVC minidresses faced tensile challenges usually reserved for suspension bridges. My friend and I stood at the top of the stairs watching an entire generation of punk-era dinner ladies wobbling precariously on stacked heels, nursing pints of cider and nostalgia in equal measure. Somewhere in Amazon there was probably an alert for a suspicious surge in plus-size goth cosplay outfits.
However, here’s the thing. Strip away the theatrical bloat, the cartoon names, the pensioner pageantry and the slapstick... and you’re still left with a damn good rock band. When they locked in, they really locked in, tight, energetic, still capable of igniting a room even if the flames were more scented candle than Molotov. Love Song had teeth. New Rose had muscle. And Smash It Up, well, it still smashed.
As the last chords rang out and the band tottered off, leaving behind a battlefield of spent cider cups and stretched corsetry, we ducked out into the Camden night and made for The Black Heart. Not because we hadn’t had a good time, we had, but because some part of us still needed to wash off the cosplay and find something with just a bit more grit, a bit more grime, and a bit less polyester.