Fangbase - Reviews

Galaxy Theatre - Santa Ana

28th September 2001

Well, I feel like I just had new life instilled into me. 25 years on and age has not worn down The Damned.

Saw them last night at the Galaxy Theatre in Orange County, CA playing to a sold out crowd. Don't ask me why but due to various circumstances it was the first time I'd seen them in a decade. And that's ten years too long.

They walked on stage to some slow waltz-like music and then the bell rang, the tape announced that grave disorder had broken out, and the band broke out in a searing version of Democracy. Then Dave invited us to all go on a surfin' safari with him and the band broke out in Song.com. Next came New Rose and Pinch pounded away on the drums like "a turbo-driven madman." Patricia was amazing to watch and looked like she was having a genuinely good time. Monty the Moron (yes, he was introduced by Captain as "Monty THE Moron") was doing the craziest pogo dance. Dave really toned down on the lounge lizard "Yeah, baby!" stuff and it helped. He seemed to know how to handle the instrumental bits better now and sometimes would go over to the keyboards and cheer Monty on.

After the third song I don't remember the exact order of the songs but they played all of Grave Disorder except for Lookin' For Action, W, Obscene, The End of Time, and Beauty of the Beast. I would've taken W over Amen but instead I got Amen. Oh well. But even the couple songs that I wasn't heavily looking forward to went over good and were well received by the crowd. And Captain came right out and said that Would You Be So Hot was about John Lennon. I'm sure that's probably no secret now but it was a little bit of a mystery at first when we started listening to the song on Nitro Radio.

And since I hadn't seen them in ten years I didn't mind hearing a few older songs too. I'll have to say I've never heard such a cataclysmic version of 13th Floor Vendetta. Monty played like he was some crazed genius. Love Song and Smash It Up were in there too and sent the crowd wild. They also played an interesting version of Neat Neat Neat that seemed to have no bass intro but all instruments starting in at once. Dave introduced Eloise with "You might've heard this one before," and Captain was running around the stage throwing the guitar around looking like he was going to fling it into the audience, and at one point chasing after one of the roadies with it. Captain wore the leopard skin top others had mentioned then came on for the encores wearing the pink tutu and a wig. Him and Dave also kept making fun of this one girl's hairstyle and they made at least three Happy Talk references throughout the set. Captain got a lot of his dates mixed up saying stuff like, "When punk started in 1977 . . . " and "When I recorded Happy Talk in 1985 I got a lot of money." Then Dave said, "And it was all gone by 1986."

The only public service announcement of the evening came from Captain who took a cigarette from someone in the audience and held it up and said: "Don't Smoke - Cigarette Bad."

The crowd was generally well-behaved but having lots of energetic fun. In the encores some fat guy kept patting me on the shoulder for some reason, and this one guy that was being a jerk the whole time purposely bumped into some girl when he was going up the steps during the Smash It Up intro. She started telling him off and it looked like a fight could break out so I jumped inbetween them and kept him moving on.

Captain also made mention of the recent terrorist attacks, telling off the terrorists, and mentioning (he said it with a little bit of a serious tone so it wasn't merely some shallow "eat, drink, and be merry" attitude) that we just need to have a good time. It was definitely the best time I have had since the pathetic cowardly attacks perpetuated not by those who were practicing their religion but by those who were perverting their religion. Like many others, I've had a hard time even "allowing" myself to have fun, but last night really helped to melt a lot of that away.

They also played Wait for the Blackout and ended the night with Disco Man, which I was very glad to hear since I hadn't seen it mentioned in anyone's report of any other shows this tour. They played the instrumental part at the end a bit longer than normal and Patricia stepped up to the center of the stage giving it her all on the bass (cool design on the bass, by the way) playing complicated scale runs incredibly fast. Yeah, being somewhat of a bassist, I was watching.

I hope I'm remembering all the highlights. I'm sure I'll remember more later. But after The Damned the biggest turn-on of the night for me was the girl that was there wearing leather and leopard-skin Josie and the Pussycats ears. Now if only she had the tail too . . .

Darth Maui