Fangbase - Reviews

Cambridge, Junction

Wednesday 17th December 2003

My trips to the gigs on this tour seem to be getting increasingly incident prone. First it was those nice young ladies in Norwich and then on the way to Cambridge I got stuck in queue of traffic on the M25 of such proportions it ended up taking nearly twice as long as I planned getting there. This meant I arrived just as 4ft Fingers were bringing their set to a close which was a bit of a shame because they sounded pretty good.

I'm glad I got there in time for The Damned's set because this was without doubt the finest and most entertaining show I've seen this line up do. Everybody seemed to really enjoy themselves and I thought Dave and Captain in particular seemed to be having the fun of their lives.

The Damned came on stage at 9.40 and were straight into the opening of a blistering Ignite seemingly without Dave, who suddenly seemed to appear out of thin air. How does he do that? Dave definitely looked the part in his black leather biker jacket with Phantom Chords in white on the back (I want one!), topped off with a natty white silk scarf. He can't half sing too. The good Captain was again in cop uniform. Patricia looked as great as ever and I could even see Pinch properly this time. Monty was tucked away at the side of the stage and all but invisible.

Ignite clattered to a close and it was straight into a great Disco Man, introduced by Dave with the words "Death to disco, that's what I say every morning before breakfast". The rest of the set was the same as the others on this tour, with the standouts being a brilliant Song.com (why wasn't that released as a single?), History of The World, Wait for the Blackout (with a quick bit of thinking from Dave as Captain stamped out a hapless punter's ciggie - "There is no smoking here" was the revised lyric) and I Just Can't Be Happy Today. I think it was during this one that Patricia ended up wearing Sensible's cop cap and earned a jaunty salute from her hubby for her trouble - she also got a kiss from him after She.

Just before Amen, Sensible launched an attack on Cliff Richard. Dave told him that Cliff had done one good song which led to an impromptu version of Move It from Captain. Dave looked aghast - "Perhaps he didn't".

The sound was really good and clear - could hear everything really well including Pinch's excellent drumming. Talking of Pinch, he announced he is now called "El Porco". Captain informed us that "Pinch has put on a lot of weight since he moved to San Diego and married that burlesque dancer who can cook".

The set came to a close with a thunderous Neat Neat Neat/Break on Thru. It's now starting to sound like NNN is a part of Break on Thru rather the other way round.

The inflatable Santa routine involving Monty, a bewhiskered Captain ("you look more like Fagin" said Dave) and Happy Talk followed. This lead to El Porco commenting "this is like something out of Phoenix Nights" as Capt danced his way across the stage.

Then came the encores proper, all four as good performances as you're likely to see from any band. New Rose, Eloise (really good and far, far better than the single version), Love Song and the inevitable (and the best one I've seen 'em do yet) Smash It Up. Just before Smash It Up, Captain was plugging the Christmas Punk Aid single in a silly northern voice when a real northern voice came from the crowd "Shut up and play Smash it Up". This lead to much onstage tittering. During the performance of the aforementioned song, Sensible was waving his hand round his head. "What's this?" enquired Dave joining in with the gesture.

A really excellent gig.

Froggy