Fangbase - Reviews

Club Laga, Pittsburgh, PA

Monday 14th October 2002

What fab f'ing gig! A 20, count em! TWENTY song set!! Playing for nearly 2 hours! Even with a number of problems before and during (more on that later) they played a blazing white hot set, absolutely on fire up there and the audience was berzerk for them!

The place was packed! Fairly small club with the monitors mounted down into a very low stage, which meant there was nothing between band an audience, a factor that both sides seemed to really enjoy. A lot like last years Philly gig at North Star.

There was lots of interaction between band and crowd, David especially seemed to really enjoy it, seeming particularly amused by the occassional stage divers. The audience seemed to be mainly college age and they were VERY psyched and wound up for it. There was also a kid in the front row in front of Captain who looked no more than 14 having the time of his life. I was talking to some of the other fans afterwards who said this gig caused quite a huge buzz around town and on the university campus.

The set list was pretty much the same as the prior night in Philly. Only this time they added Eloise and Under The Floor Again back in.

Street Of Dreams opened again with lots of audience sing along and fists in the air on the
"Ohhh-eeeee-ohhhh" parts.

Democracy
Just Can't Be Happy Today (The crowd went nuts for this one)
Song.Com
Nasty (another on that whipped them into a frenzy)
Absinthe
Disco Man (Dave did a little Travolta dance action and falsetto Bee Gee Stayin' Alive vocals at the end.)
Plan 9
Would You Be So Hot
Amen
13th Floor Vendetta (one of the BEST live versions I've ever witnessed of this one. They carried the end of the song into a climatic extended finish with Pinch doing some extremely impressive drum work)
Wait For The Blackout
Under The Floor Again (Sounded AMAZING, carries off so well live! This one subdued the crowd of course and left the younger one's looking a little confused but it sounded SOOOOOO good! Plus it let them rest up and laid ground for the mayhem that the next song induced....
Ignite (the audience went absolutely berzerk, the whole place was jumping with everyone doing the
"Whooa" parts. Captain commented later after the show "Did you see how mental they went for Ignite?!"
She
Neat Neat Neat (nuts again, absolutely mental reaction for the crowd)
Eloise
Love Song
New Rose
Smash It Up I & II

Needless to say those last 3 only heightened the crowd frenzy. It was really aparent that the crowd, although younger, had done their Damned homework and knew all the old songs as well as the new. It was great to see. Yet another testament that Warped Tour was a good thing for The Damned, gaining them lots of new fans who are very enthusiastic. At one point they even started chants of "Smash it up! Smash it up! Smash It Up!" and much to Pinch's amusement "English Dogs! English Dogs! English Dogs!"

At one point during the evening Captain mentioned that he was a bit sick. Someone in the audience shouted a reply of "You were a bit sick when you did that Happy Talk song!" sending Pinch into a fit of laughter.

For a gig that started off, and experienced some problems throughout, it ended up being one of the best sets I've seen them play, to a really terrific audience. First off Captain was feeling a bit under the weather with a case of "Runny Guts" as he called it. Only minuites before the gig he was slumped into a chair looking rather uncomfortable. But when he went on, although he was a bit subdued physically, he put everything he had into his guitar, and played like his life depended on it! Bravo Captain, hope you're feeling better.

Then, evidently during one of the opening band sets, some sort of rather bad fight broke out (between two dames no less, Meeerrowl! Hiss!) and the cops were called in. Next, during their set take down, the drummer from Tiger Army dropped his bass drum pedal down onto one of Monty's keyboards. It rendered one of his lowest keys useless, which happened to be one he used on Amen. They got that resolved only to have the entire keyboard go out sporadically throughout the set then completely for one entire song which really upset Monty. After Neat Neat Neat, and lots of gaffer tape around a connection he was back in action.

Next the lights stopped working for a while. And last but not least, during a break between two of the songs, someone from the audience got another one down on the floor and was kicking the sh*t out of them. No one else, including security, seemed to be aware of what was going on. Luckily Pinch spotted it from up on his riser and came out from behind the drums pointing and yelling. Security finally woke up. With all the little mishaps and mayhem though it still turned out to be one hell of a great gig. Photos to follow soon.....

Steve Seitz

Thanks to Steve Seitz for these photos!