Fangbase - Reviews

Deep Ellum, Dallas. TX

3rd November 2001

First time getting to see this band. Despite my excitement in finally getting a chance to see them, I must admit I was expecting to witness a bunch of old geezers wheezing along to memories of old glory. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Showed up late in an attempt to miss the two opening acts, but we walked inside just as The Briefs were starting their set. I was glad for the timing. The Briefs were surprisingly good. Very energetic, and very good playing. They were clearly having fun, with crazy string flying everywhere and a make-shift banner behind them declaring them as "The Toss-Pots". Probably a gift from the Captain... As a perfect way to begin the evening, they closed their set with the Captain coming onstage and doing the vocals as they played Jet Boy Jet Girl. A song I truly hoped I would hear, but never thought I would.

The Toilet Boys came up after the mess onstage was cleared, and we quickly made our way to the back near the merch table. I wanted to like these guys. They put on a good show and do some amazing pyrotechnics, but the music was pure glam, and just not my style. Of all the people I talked to, everyone either liked them or didn't. There didn't seem to be much middle ground.

After the Toilet Boys was an excruciating 45-minute wait for the set change. But finally, the Damned unassumingly came on stage as the intro sample to Democracy started playing. They kicked into the song with more force than I've just about ever heard. Nothing to do with volume, there was just that much energy. I could see the band grinning and smiling to one another and the audience, and it was an absolute blast. For the hour of the first set and following thirty minute encore, they were just balls out the entire time.

They played most of the new album and quite a few old classics, including Love Song, Plan 9, Neat Neat Neat, Disco Man and Eloise. The playing was very tight, and it's pretty clear that each of them really knows what they're doing. If the couple of mistakes I did notice stood out, it was only because everything else was so impeccable. If ever there were a time for a live album, this is it. I gained a new appreciation for the new album, and the older songs sounded better than I've ever heard them before.

The Captain came out for the second set wearing his tutu and wig, and after a few more songs, they closed the show with Smash It Up. They lit up the stage with giant sparklers, and when the song kicked in, they were joined by most of the Briefs and Toilet Boys as well as several roadies, and a small riot ensued. Everyone on stage and in the crowd went crazy, singing along, throwing cream pies at one another and batting a six foot inflatable penis around the crowd! Being the last show in America, I guess they wanted to end with a bang.

Quite possibly the best show I've ever seen, it was over much too soon. I walked out completely exhausted despite never even getting near the pit. I did get a chance outside to thank Monty for such an incredible experience, and then joined the crowd that quickly formed around the Captain as he talked to us and gave us a great impersonation of Phil Collins (complete with mask!). Too bad I didn't get to meet any of the other three.

My only hope is that I'll get a chance to see them again.

James McVay

Another...

It's funny. My somewhat-Country-music-oriented wife kinda insisted on going to this show despite my warnings, and despite having seen one photo and never hearing the group.

She's on about 4hrs. sleep and when we get to the show I learn there are two opening bands and both are expected to play for over 45 minutes each. This brought accusations of 'I thought you said I'd be subjected to this for only two-or-so hours.' In my defense, I only found out about the Briefs we were at the ticket window, and their van pulled up as we were waiting in line. I tell you, that's bare-bones rock and roll when seven guys pull up in a van and start unloading the trailer an hour before the show. People in line started asking if they wanted help. These guys looked more-or-less indistiugishable from their road crew. Imagine a less dorky Green Day and you get the idea.

Squatting against the building and having a smoke is a blonde, fortyish-looking man. We've all heard those "so and so was RIGHT THERE and nobody even went up to him" and I started to worry this was The Captain or Somebody Important. Obviously he was of some importance as the Briefs knew him, my wife kept asking him if he was going to take his clothes off onstage tonight and he kept insisting in properly-accented non-American English that he was not the Captain. He showed a Wisconsin drivers license as proof. He did volunteer that he'd been traveling with the band for several days, had been awake and drinking most of that time and after the post-show party was due to catch a 5am flight. Poor guy just needed a cup of coffee, and after we explained that one block further than he'd previously ventured there were all manner of coffeehouses he took off. The wife said he was probably desperate to get the hell away from us, but some time later he returned with coffee and somewhat cheerier.

She kept insisting that since he knew the band, he should get us an audience with The Captain but he consistently begged off and I have to admit that if a meeting had been arranged I'd probably have babbled foolishly with little to say of intelligence.

I note that it's the last show of the tour to which our Wisconsinite friend notes that it will get messy. The wife is petrified, knowing nothing about the Damned and less about Last Shows of the Tour. So we go inside and get a seat to guarantee we'll be out of mosh-pit or flying object range and as the house music plays she sticks her earplugs in. Uh-uh. It's like going to a car race and putting your earplugs in the moment you arrive at the track. Once the green flag waves, you can't put 'extra strength' earplugs in, so when the Briefs start up at 10x the volume of the intro tape, well... "At least the songs are short" was said, but she failed to grasp the humor of Pinch sneaking up behind these guys and spraying them with Silly String or Shaving cream every so often (last night of the tour...). It all ended with pie throwing and the Captain joining them for "Jet Boy/Jet Girl." For the most part, they were quite good.

The Toilet Boys are next. They're sort-of this mid-70's glam-metal takeoff, 4/5ths without the long hair but with tattoos, and the lead singer is androgynous enough to make David Johansen or Freddy Mercury look like Grizzly Adams. He's wearing a slit-up t-shirt of Marilyn Monroe, one shredded thigh-high stocking, a glitter g-string/speedo type of thing and 1/2 a pair of spandex pants. I have to admit to do that this dude's cojones have got to be about 50lbs. You've got the usual Texan "GET THAT #@$&% QUAR OFF THE DAMN STAGE" bellowing-- wondering what the hell they are seeing the Damned for and not at redneck watering hole and needless to say this little dude isn't exactly afraid to confront and openly bait such Conservative Republican notions in quite the Libertarian free-love way.

Anonymous Damned member-unable to determine at our distance if it's Captain or Pinch-- comes out on stage wearing blonde wig, leopard-print thong and French-maid-look barbecue apron and prances around on stage with the Toilet Boys to laughter and delight of MOST people in building. We had fire blowing, and sparklers, and laser pointers and generally it looked like a backyard imitation Kiss show on a garage band budget. The songs weren't anything we hadn't already heard more than enough of between 1984 and 1992. By the time they're done the wife's amusement level cannot be measured with a micrometer.

So then the Damned come on and I have to admit though I don't set the bar high for an $18 show and for the last night of the tour they still put in a top-notch performance. I'd heard the Damned's shows described as "Roar and Roll" and that's an apt title. As with another band from Ye Olden Tymes who'd not released much in the way of new material of late (the Sisters of Mercy) the new stuff was well integrated into the set and rest assured I'll be picking up a copy of "Grave Disorder" to review in the privacy of my own car-at times my wife is not riding shotgun, natch. I truly suck at keeping track of Setlists but enough classics were in there to please the masses: "New Rose" was the second song played. "Neat Neat Neat", "Plan 9 Channel 7", and "Wait for the Blackout" were all present and accounted for.

Texas apathy was somewhat prevalent in this crowd but things got active, pitwise, with every uptempo tune-and thankfully security seemed willing to let the fans play unsupervised so long as nobody got hurt. "Eloise" was surprisingly well fleshed out considering the quite-full Studio treatment of the original. I admit I consider Rat to be one of Rock's finest drummers but all the good things said about Pinch's abilities apply. I will also give a call to Patricia Morrison - she's the real deal and certainly isn't just in the band 'coz she's the singer's wife.

Show ends, encore starts, Sensible comes out wearing pink/blonde (ah, lighting) bob wig and pink tutu skirt. Sings "Happy Talk", masturbates the mike stand and spits after enough strokes. Encore continues with full band for "Disco Man". A Female fan from the crowd is pulled onstage for "Love Song" and interacts in an appropriately inappropriate manner with the band. The show closes up with the long awaited "Smash It Up", during which all of the Briefs and most of the Toilet Boys come onstage with fire extinguishers, pies, shaving cream, silly string and a 5' tall inflatable penis. People dive from the stage, the penis gets bopped out into the crowd like a beach ball, Captain rides the penis, Pinch is covered in every form of sprayed matter or foodstuffs on the stage, Captain player is tackled, Patricia and Dave are untouched. All leave the stage in the squeal of feedback and other unitentifiable noises. It was awesome. House lights come up. No need for another encore. Sure, I might have liked to hear "Nasty" or "Shadow of Love" but topping this gig would be unbelievably tough.

Not one word from my wife the moment we left all the way to the car. Two quotes from "The History of the Damned, part I" from "The Light at the End of the Tunnel" come to mind when reflecting on this wild and wooly gig. First is "...as the roadies closed the curtain on them during their 7th encore, the bass drum rolled elegantly through them and landed in about 6 pints of scrumpy at the front of the stage. Maybe it was this kind of thing that got in the way of a fuller appreciation of the finer points of The Damned for some people." I remember the look of utter disgust and bewilderment from my wife during "Smash It Up" and, yep, this applies. The other is that "...they could always play, always put on a show, always cared about the punters and were always glad to have their money." I've been to other shows at the beginning and middle of tours and this level of enthusiasm and energy simply was not present. The Damned cared enough to put on a helluva show. It was evident. Hard to think of a better way to spend my money.

And to our friend from Wisconsin, hope you enjoyed your stay.

Michael Gaughan

And another...

Hey, hey-

We went to see a show at the same venue, like, a month later, and we spent the entire time horribly pissed at the openers. One guy actually said in a bad, bad British accent "We're Goat Whore and we're from Louisiana." Man, what the fuck's up with that? Anyway, I fell asleep on the fucking bar during the subsequent show, so. It's not that they were awful or anything, just that we were spoiled. We'll have to try a show soon though, it has been almost a year.

That night though? Two words- Freaking grand! Wonderful openers, wonderful energy on every one's part. I was high for a week afterwards. I got a fat lip during "Smash it Up" and my husband scratched his glasses. He still won't buy a new pair. He wants to be able to show our grandchildren a relic form when we saw the best show either of us had ever seen, and well, we're (okay, we used to be) concert junkies.

I only have one regret. I didn't bring a damn camera. You see, this was right when every one in America was so all horribly patriotic (it was trendy) and we were, well, bitching about false patriotism. We turned the corner around the Adams Hats building, and there is was on the marquee:

Deep Ellum Live

God Bless America
The Damned

Man, 'cause that would've been my yuletide card for years.

Thanks for the night,

Misdy Brown