Fangbase - Reviews

The Welly Club, Hull

Saturday 30th November 2002

Well yet again you surpass yourselves, visiting my home town of Hull ....(too long between visits).

Keep up the good work

Ps..first time I've heard Eloise live!! Don't leave it so long to come back next time.

Ta Ta 4 now ...
Davey B

Pps..met up with some mates I haven't seen for nearly 17 year's .. The Killer Handbags!!....... supporting our hero's, fucking unbeleivable :0)..... If your reading this Macky , good to see you again m8y.....ta ta

Another...

It's not often that big bands come to my area, especially those that I actually like, so when I heard that The Damned were going to be coming to Hull, which is less than 30 miles from where I live, I made sure that I got myself a ticket.

£12.50, or £14.00 if you simply turned up on the night, wasn't much to ask for a ticket, by any means, even if there weren't any support bands and it was just a 50 minute show. There were, however, support bands. These mainly consisted of 'local talent'. Things hit off at just after 7pm, the first band's guitarist had recently broken his finger, thus becoming a static frontman while a young lad I used to go to school with stood in for him. I think there were two more support bands, both speaking with the Humberside accent, I don't remember any band or song names, although the second band's guitarist said one song was about masturbation, which didn't matter because I couldn't hear anything apart from a bloody racket (that's British slang for 'a horrible noise' to any foreigners reading this).

I'll cut straight to it then, The Damned appeared before 9pm, playing for a good hour-and-a-half and the few hundred people that had gathered in the room all swarmed towards the front of the stage. There was a band of open space separating the wild jumping dancers and the somber old farts and women that were just stood there with pints and fags in hand.

The sound was awful throughout this gig, I couldn't make out virtually any of the lyrics, luckily I have memorised so many, the offerings from Grave Disorder were below average. I made the most of the gig, joining in with the 40-something gits that were frantically jumping up and down and creating a row of colliding bodies, that was really fun. The songs I'm less familiar with were a nightmare to recognise, the songs I can remember are New Rose, Amen, Song.com, Democracy?, Thrill Kill, W and Love Song, which was one of the best performances of the night, it got the crowd going up and down like hell.

The encore included Would You Be So Hot (If You Weren't Dead?), which was actually very good indeed for this gig, its mellow guitar solo's and Captain Sensible's "Paul McCartney was The Beatles" after song comment was great; he was in a 'Don't Attack Iraq' shirt and a kilt, he was quite funny, "this [New Rose] is the first punk song - Anarchy in the UK, the Sex Pistols? Never heard of them," he said before going into their classic.

David Vanian was doing brilliantly in terms of performance during the songs, it was just wasted on the dismal sound setup. Patricia Morrison, added to The Damned lineup a while ago, simply played (rather good) bass on the spot. Pinch is a really good drummer, one thing that was good about the night was the drumming sound.

Monty Oxy Moron was the first to appear on stage, he's really cool, simply being there adds a certain mischief to things, his keyboarding was really good, albeit drowned out at times; Obscene wasn't played (that I can remember or make out), which is a shame, because it's a great keyboarding song.

One thing I'm really pleased about is that they played my current favourite, Song.com about halfway through. Merchandise on offer included £1 badges, one of which I bought, and Grave Disorder CD's for £10. All in all, I was glad to see this amazing band live for the first time, and I'm glad they played the whole load of modern Grave Disorder songs that they did, I could really get into them. The night as a whole did nothing to shift the Sex Pistols from being my favourite band, though.

Well, I'll not go too much into what happened to me during the night, but it involved throwing up, losing my wallet, jumping up and down, being crushed by middle-aged blokes and going to a pub next door with a Dutchwoman who miraculously recognised me from The Damned's official message board. The mind boggles.

Sorry, no pictures, my digital camera doesn't work in low levels of light, but I did try.

www.tom-green.tk

And another...

Just to let all the world know that gigs like this prove that the Damned ARE the greatest band in the world.

Speaking as one of the old farts (who was there in '76 Tom Green!!) standing just at the edge of the normal mayhem (I was still in it up to five years ago, but us old farts damage easy), I thought that the entire gig was typically Damned, typically awesome, and the songs from Grave Disorder (the best album by ANYBODY since Damned Damned Damned) were definitely NOT below average (otherwise, cheers for a good review Tom).

Haven't got a clue what songs they played, all of them I think, it was just too good to remember (though the Turkey Song and Lets's Dance are probably worth a mention)

God bless the entire bunch, loveable old farts that they are... see you again soon ...

Bob Clarkson

Another....

£12.50 to a Hull audience is very expensive. But then again, no band has played Hull so worthy of that £12.50 than The Damned.

The local promoter proved again that he didn't know what he was doing by booking support that would not bring in a fanbase, and b) that were crap. The 1st support I can only comment from what I've heard as, arriving half an hour late, I missed them. There is something wrong with that - when do bands ever come on stage within 30 mins of doors opening?

Hull has a thriving punk scene with the likes of Freaks Union (Town Clockz records) and Whizzwood who have toured with the likes of Capdown and Monkey Boy. Even for the old school punks, Gobble and the Cocks are a fantastic local band but instead we got The Killer Handbags who are basically failed pub punk. Their set recieved little enthusiasm from the crowd and lacked any sort of passion but nevermind cos The Damned were up next.

Within seconds of The Killer Handbags set closing, people started to move towards the barrier. It was the fullest I've seen Welly, with other recent gigs there such as 4ft Fingers, failing to bring in the numbers. The set kicked off with Video Nasty and got people pogoing straight away.

Dave Vanian looked cool and Captain Sensible looked the same geezer we all love, making us laugh with digs towards The Stranglers, but also with a hidden message as he sang a song about "Turkey Burgers".

The set was full of classics, the new songs in particular standing out. It's a shame the likes of "New Rose" wasn't included in the set, perhaps thats due to some twat shouting after every song "Nuuuuwww Rose!", there was other people as well like this, dirty old men basically, or so my female friends told me. And things were getting thrown onto the stage.

The show finished with a brilliant version of "Neat Neat Neat" which went into parts of LA Woman by The Doors, proving that the Damned are more than just a punk band. Then "Smash It Up" finished the set off. A few flaws but a band, far from dead and definitly worth checking out again.

Kirk Burton