“We may be senior citizens, but we’ve still f**king got it!” – Captain Sensible
Legendary punk/goth rock band The Damned has embarked on a special 40th Anniversary Tour, recently selling out the Fine Line Music Café in Minneapolis, for a raucous reminder that they are not done yet.
Starting off the evening was equally loud indie pop-punk band Bleached, who we’d seen just last fall, but reminded us that they also played the 7th Street Entry, an exact year before this opening gig. The Los Angeles band is actually a duo- sisters Jennifer Clavin and Jessica Clavin (formerly of the band Mika Miko) and rounded out by bassist Micayla Grace and drummer Nick Pillot and is in support of recent EP, Can You Deal? (Dead Oceans Records).
The foursome roared out of the gate for their forty-minute set with the opening, ‘Think of You’, a barrage of punkish noise and attitude and a sound that early incarnations of The Go Go’s and Bangles, would have embraced. ‘Trying to Lose Myself’ then revved immediately into ‘Keep on Keepin’ On’, a song about not looking back, or having any regrets.
The songs singer Jennifer Clavin sings are mostly a catharsis of sorts, expelling the hurt from bad relationships, substance abuse and loss, such as “I've been giving in into giving up” on ‘Sour Candy’ but her lyrics and the band’s delivery leave hope for brighter moments ahead, and the overall end result is a noisy, entertaining release of energy and the chance to finally exhale.
After a dark break, a layer of dry ice-induced fog covered the stage as keyboardist Monty Oxymoron began the set with a moody but relaxed instrumental piece as the rest of The Damned took to the stage for their hundred-minute headlining performance.
Singer Dave Vanian has aged well, in sharp vest, shirt and suit jacket, black gloved with his moustache ends waxed, while cohort and guitarist Captain Sensible wore plaid pants, a jean vest dotted with band pins and a floppy red beret. Pinch on drums and Stu West (in Frankenstein t-shirt) mostly kept to the back, keeping the rhythm always in check.
Things got started with an early track, 1979’’s ‘Melody Lee’, Vanian singing into an old style microphone as a phallic symbolled piñata vibrated in place on a back speaker from the reverb and bass. 1982’S ‘Generals’ was next, brought up to date by Vanian dedicating the song to Donald Trump. A Love cover song was appropriately followed by ‘Love Song’ which led into ‘Second Time Around’ and Sensible cheekily shouting down the few cat calls coming from the crowd.
“Anyone like ‘Strawberries’?”, Sensible asked, not referring to the fruit; rather the band’s 1982 named album, as they jumped into ‘Stranger on the Town’ from that record and the crowd “whoa-oh”-ing on cue. Sensible then fumbled for the correct term, but got everyone to turn on their cellphone flashlights (as lighters are scarce in the 21st Century) for a rumbling ‘Wait for the Blackout’.
Things got dialed all the way back to 1976 for the band’s first single, ‘New Rose’, a crunchy quick-paced song, ideal for speeding down highways or crashing cars, following (of course) with their second single, ‘Neat Neat Neat’ to close their main set at the seventy-minute mark. The crowd though, was not having it, chanting the band’s name until they returned for an encore.
Sensible took the lead for the playful and melodic ‘Silly Kids Games’ asking the crowd after if they wanted another from him, before he caught himself “what an ego-maniac, how’d you put up with that for forty years?!” then yelled ‘Jet Boy, Jet Girl!’ as the next song of choice.
After ‘Noise Noise Noise’ and a somewhat embarrassing Bruce Springsteen story by Sensible, the band closed with ‘Smash It Up’- emblazoned on the front of Sensible’s striped long sleeve shirt, but the audience made to wait until late to hear it.
Wanting even more, the band was coxed out for a second encore culminating in a hard driving ‘Anti Pope’ from 1979, with Sensible dedicating the entire set at the end to Prince, “We’ll never see the likes of him again!” he said in sincere reverence, even trying out a verse of ‘Manic Monday’ before dashing off stage.
With forty years of music and history behind them, The Damned brought a diverse crowd of fans out to celebrate with them- punks, goths, bikers, baby boomers, Gen X and Y-ers, Brit ex-pats, curious millennials, and more—an obvious sign, that they do, in fact, “still f**king got it”.
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