|
Fangbase
- Reviews
|
Sala Jam, Bergara
Saturday 16th November 2002
The
last time I saw the Damned, it was a great gig in Paris at L'Elysée
Montmartre, with Rat and Paul. It 
was
ten years ago, in 1992 (a friday 13th, in march).
Now there's another line-up, they have released the excellent "Grave Disorder" and I was desperately waiting for a new date in Paris. So when I saw that they were going to play in Bergara (Spain), I made up my mind to go to this little basque town, even if it's 800km away from my home, because, as I have said before, Ainhoa, my girlfriend, is precisely living there. She's not really a fan of the Damned (she only likes "Phantasmagoria"), my love for them seems very strange to her, and of course she was not very enthusiastic about going to the gig. So I had to persuade her to come with me until the last moment! In the streets, there was blue posters announcing the gig and there was a short article in a local newspaper in basque language: "The Damned, punk klasikoko talde onenetariko bat, jamen. Dave Vanian eta Captain Sensibleren The Damned taldeak izua eta erokeria piztu zuten Erresuma Batuko agertoki guztiertan, punk mugimenduaren aldirik bizienean..." It's impressive, isn't it?
The Sala Jam is set in the Bergara industrial estate and it's a small and nice venue with three bars and a balcony above where we put ourselves because Ainhoa was a little worried about possible moshing people...As we arrived early, we began to take a couple of beers in the next bar. The support group started on time: it was a spanish band called Jane Doe and they were sounding a little like Nirvana with energy. Not really original but OK. When they finished their set, the floor was very crowded with a lot of people. I was suprised because there was a lot of very young people, maybe because the ticket price was very democratic: 12 euros (by comparison, the same week end, in Bilbao, there was Paul Weller for 30 euros).
The lights went down very soon (just the time to drink another beer) and the band appeared through the smoke : "we're not the Sex Pistols, we're The Damned and we're fantastic" Captain said. They opened with "Street Of Dreams", which is a good way to start the show. Then Ainhoa turned to me and said with a smile "Hey I know this one!". Later, when they went into "I just Can't Be happy Today"; she said "I know this one, too". Then she was delighted and for her first Damned experience she had a great time!
The Damned gave us a wonderful show. It was a brillant gig, with good humour and high energy, and they seemed to enjoy themselves a lot of fun, too. Dave is really comfortable on the stage, always on the move, dancing, twirling and jumping like a broken Elvis. Again Captain was in great form, with his red beret, a "Don't Bomb Iraq" T-shirt and a kilt and he was thanking the crowd in basque language ("eskerrik asko"). He's a fantastic guitarist, with a great sound, and his solos are so splendid! During the encore, on "Smash It Up" he played the guitar over the head and his last words before he left the stage were: "and remember: you smoke too much!". Patricia's bass was brillant and in my opinion she gives a new and interesting feeling to the old songs, especially on the excellent "I Just Can't Be Happy Today". She was always smiling, except at one moment when she got really angry, and she was right because a stupid drunkard threw her a plastic glass of beer. So she showed that she had temper and voice! Pinch is a really good drummer, he was imperial and his beating has power over the sound of the band. Last but not least, Monty is the best ever keyboard player the Damned have had. The mix was bad on some songs and it was a pity because it was not really easy to hear him. He had this black and white shirt with skulls (it's so nice, I want the same), and he was dancing and jumping like a madman. Well... I think that Ainhoa fell in love with him! So during the encore, I left her on the balcony and went down in front of the stage!
And now... Some few statistics (you know how I like that): they have played 19 songs, almost 2 hours. Most of the gig was made with songs from "Machine Gun Etiquette" (5 songs) and "Grave Disorder" (5 songs, too, which are excellent live).
Among the old songs, they played great versions of "I Just Can't Be Happy Today", "Under The Floor Again", introduced by the famous "Strawberries" flashback sequence (personally it was the first time I heard this one live and it gave me shivers), "Disco Man", very fast ("Dios mio, que violento"; Ainhoa said, while everybody in the crowd was jumping like demented), as well as "Neat Neat Neat" (the crowd went crazy, frantically jumping ans singing), etc.
I'm not sure but I think they played the 19 songs in this order: