My review of The Damned Wasted Gig at The Astoria on 12th December 2004.
Written By: Drinking About My Baby. |
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This was going to be one mad gig - going to see my fave band, The Damned, for the first time since the early '90s & meeting up with many of The Official Damned Message Boarders for the first time. Neal & I set off from our flat late morning, after much flapping from me about what to wear, what to bring with & my hair, etc. We finally reached our destination (after getting a tad lost), The Columbia Hotel, where we & many other Member Boarders stayed for the night. Booking into the hotel was fun, introducing ourselves as Drinking About My Baby & Spotty Neal! We went straight to our room where I changed for the gig & did more flapping & hair preening. When I was finally ready, we headed for the Hotel bar & we met our first Damned Message Board peeps - Mills & InfiltraTress. We had a few drinks & then a few more & a few more after that! We spent so long there, that we eventually met up with many more MBers including Damned Fairy, Sister Of Passion & Laughing Policeman, White Rabbit SKGs, Damned Mistress, Night Girl, Curtain Call, Lottie & Anyanka Vengeance. (so sorry if I have forgotten anyone). Anyways, after a few more drinks, Neal & I got a taxi with a few other MBers to the venue - The Astoria. There were loads of punks milling around outside & we went in & got our yellow wristbands. We met a few more Mbers once inside. After a while, we decided to go for something to eat with Mills & InfiltraTress, Curtain Call, Lottie, Anyanka Vengeance, White Rabbit SKGs, Damned Mistress, Sister of Passion, & Laughing Policeman. (again, sorry if I have forgotten anybody). Lets just say we got a few odd stares on the streets whilst finding somewhere to eat - some restaurants even refused us entry! In the end, we found Garfunkles & we all poured into there, much to the amusement of the other diners, who thought we were all in fancy dress! We all ordered our food & had a good old chat. We went back to the Astoria, which was pumping with loud music & had a few drinks at the bar & met even more MBers including Al Fiendish, Gina Snowdoll & Tamsin The Tottenham Totty. After a while, Neal & I headed upstairs where we met Miche & Andy too. Whilst waiting for The Damned to come on, we listened to Hazel O'Connor sing her set & then Neal had a good old mosh to Sham 69 - when he came back, he looked like he was about to collapse due to the heat, etc. down in the mosh pit ! Finally, The damned came on. It was the first time I had seen Pinch, Monty & Stu play as The Damned & blooming brilliant they were too! Dave Vanian looked as suave as ever & his voice was on top form as usual, Captain Sensible looked great & did all the usual banter, Stu was great on Bass & Pinch was equally great on the drums. The first time I saw Monty I had to laugh, what with his frantic jumping around beside his keyboard, what a showman! The set was brilliant & included all the old favourites, a few from their Grave Disorder Album & Jet Boy, Jet Girl that I had never heard before live - SteveWinsc did a sterling job on backing vocals too. The audience certainly loved the set & the atmosphere was brilliant. The set went something like this: (Not necessarily in this order)
Love Song,
The encore was:
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