Words and Pictures: Louise Phillips (C) Louise Phillips Photography
When you think about the early days of punk, it’s impossible not to think about The Damned, they go together like Sid and Nancy, Westwood and McLaren, earlobes and safety pins, they are fearless pioneers, punk mavericks that tore a path that others have tried to emulate, but no one has done it with quite the same dark, brooding, sexy punk attitude and edgy sound that The Damned has!!
What was meant to be two nights in the iconic Roundhouse, sadly turned into one as “The Captain” (The Damned’s legendary guitarist) was forced to pull out of the second night after doctors insisted that he was too ill to play, a decision that he literally fought until an hour before showtime as he was so committed to giving his fans the rock-solid kick-arse performance that they’d come for! These guys are professional and committed right down to their black hearts.
But even before punk’s finest turned the audience into a mass of pogo’ing hedonistic happy people, there were two outstanding bands whipping the crowd into the punk rock spirit tonight in the form of Queens finest, the American garage rock band, ‘The Fleshtones’ and the 80’s smash hit poster boys and girl, the fabulous ‘Doctor and the Medics!’ Just like The Damned, both bands were timeless, vital and infectiously fun.
Doctor & The Medics
The doctor was a formidable force in his black and white dogtooth coat as he delivered a performance that was nostalgic and feelgood through and through! When the Doctor announced that Tina Turner did 18 weeks of cover songs and the medics did it for 18 years, the audience erupted into appreciative applause! It was never in any doubt that the Doctor and his band certainly knew how to deliver the goods as they played track after much loved track from their back catalogue, and it will be no surprise to anyone that the absolute crowd pleaser of their set was their eighties smash hit, ‘Spirit in the Sky’.
SETLIST: Perfect World / Burn In Your Love / Love, Peace and Bananas / Forever and Ever / No-One Loves You When You’ve Got No Shoes / Terrified / Fried Egg Bad Monday / The Molecatcher’s Boot / Spirit in the Sky (Norman Greenbaum cover)
The Fleshtones
‘The Fleshtones’ were a bubble of infectious energy, the best part of which was their incredibly bouncy guitarist Keith Streng, who seemed to have all the vigour and energy of the Russian gymnastics squad and put on one hell of a show! But despite, Streng’s boundless energy, he wasn’t the only star of the show as the entire band seemed to bounce off each other, undoubtedly thanks to their many years as a solid part of the American garage punk scene!
SETLIST: New Song / Back to School / Way of the World / The Hearse (The Astronauts cover) / I Surrender (Bonnie St. Claire cover) / Remember the Ramones / Hitsburg USA
The Damned
Dave Vanian still has that vampire-esque timeless quality, that has always made him hypnotic and captivating, dark and devilishly delicious! His voice still rich and superb in every sense, and as a band they were tighter than Dracula’s Y-fronts!!
Their first track of the night was the 1979 song, ‘Love Song’, a stunning start to their twenty-two song set that was like a fully immersive rollercoaster ride through their illustrious career, every track razor sharp as the charismatic Vanian and the Captain, bantered with the audience. But as for the killer tracks of the night, it was a toss-up between the unforgettable Barry Ryan cover, ‘Eloise’, classically beautiful and ageless, the explosive ‘Neat, Neat, Neat’, the final track of the night, the brilliant, ‘Smash it Up, the thrashing ‘Machine Gun Etiquette’ and the instantly recognisable ‘New Rose’, all of which sounded so good that if one of the new-wave of punk bands put them out now, they would undoubtedly be put up there as the next big thing! ‘New Rose’ started with Rat Scabies thundering drum solo that crashed unapologetically into the track, sending the audience into a mass of sweaty pogoing ageing anarchists!! Have these guys still got it?! By the bucket load they have!!
This will be one of those gigs where if you were there, then you were really there!! Talked about in the context of, “do you remember that proper wicked night at the Roundhouse in ‘24! That night where it was like going back thirty years, that was a fucking amazing night!” Or as on a cold wet December night working my way back home along the grubby Northern Line, a couple of punks said to me, “it’s not a good night, unless you lose a shoe or a tooth” and whilst I left the venue with shoes and teeth intact, I totally got what they were on about!!
SETLIST:
Love Song
Machine Gun Etiquette
Wait for the Blackout
Lively Arts
The History of the World (Part 1)
Plan 9 Channel 7
Stranger on the Town
Limit Club
I Just Can’t Be Happy Today
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Beware of the Clown
Eloise (Barry Ryan cover)
Life Goes On
The Invisible Man
Ignite
Neat Neat Neat
Encore:
Curtain Call
Drum Solo (Rat Scabies)
New Rose
Encore 2:
There Ain’t No Sanity Clause
Smash It Up (Part 1)
Smash It Up (Part 2)
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