ACADEMY 1 - LIVERPOOL
Sunday 5th December 2004


The Venue was the Liverpool Carling Academy. The Damned played here in April of this year, yet that was in the Academy 2. For this night they'd been promoted to the Academy 1, which is probably twice as big as Academy 2. I was pretty happy about this, it was nice to see the band in a bigger venue.

Got there in time to see the support. Flamingo 50 were first and were pretty terrible. Second on were A Thousand Fake Names, who'd supported The Damned at the Liverpool Lomax in 2003. They were better.

The Damned came on just after 9:30pm, starting with the MGE Love Song. I nabbed a set list at the end of the gig, I hope it's here in its entirety and please correct me if I'm wrong, although the encore bit was ripped off by the roadie, so here goes:


Love Song
Second Time Around (MGE)
I Just Can't Be Happy Today
Antipope
New Rose
History Of The World
I Fall
Lookin At You
Would You Be So Hot
Magic Potion
Absinthe
Ignite
Eloise
Melody Lee
Neat Neat Neat


Encore
Jet Boy Jet Girl
Curtain Call
Noise Noise Noise
Smash It Up


Personal highlights included History of the World, Eloise was brilliant and Ignite had really good crowd participation. Nice to hear a new song (or cover!) in Magic Potion. I was quite surprised to hear Curtain Call, I haven't heard it live before. It was a bit shorter than the original version! As usual, New Rose and Neat Neat Neat were pretty much perfect. Things were rounded off with Smash It Up and things got pretty manic at the front for that one.

I'm looking forward to the next tour. Just one question: where was Dave Vanian's tache?

Lewis Cook