By DJ Astrocreep

Storm warnings? Well, I’m off to see the Damned anyway, what could go wrong? Alongside a support slot from Birmingham’s The Nightingales, a band from the olden days of post-punk, a lot of old-school punk and goth fun was promised. The question was, would the rain and storms keep the crowd away? Judging by the surrounding faces as our support act takes to the stage… absolutely not!

I wasn’t sure quite what to expect from The Nightingales, but have to admit, I absolutely loved them! Elements of noise and even prog seep into their dystopian post-punk soundscape, creating quite a formidable wall of noise. While Robert Lloyd remains their one founding member keeps the vocals true, the rest of the band do a more than ample job of just making things work. Fliss Kitson on drums is an absolute metronome, hitting everything on point – even on the shifting time signatures and off beats.

The guitars, both bass and lead, also play their roles perfectly, with every song merged straight into another to maximise stage time meaning everything is at breakneck speed! I’m actually repeating drawn to Kitson on the drums, as she does as good an impression of Animal from The Muppets as you’re likely to see absolutely ferocious, even when performing dual vocal duties. You can see the audience start to move more and more as they work through their set, showing how good a job they do of winning over new people – myself included. A fantastic support set.

The acoustics are always great in The Albert Hall and even the dirtier end of The Damned‘s back catalogue sounds great in this venue. I’m lucky to find myself a seat on line with the stage – a mere seven feet away, at that, so it’s actually hard not to feel part of it. They sound so tight on stage, with the twin beret attacks of Paul Gray and Captain Sensible on bass and guitar providing a frenetic, yet melodic, pace alongside the drummer. Monty and Dave just both look effortlessly cool as they wind their way through the set, with Vanian’s voice sounding as good as ever.

The Damned take to the stage to much acclaim and we get some pogo people at it from the very start, though second in set The Invisible Man gets people into real pit action. The pace is frenetic throughout and the mosh pit and pogoers continue through a good part of the first half of the main set, despite it being orientated a lot more towards their new material, which not as many are au fait with. We even have the two roadies called centre stage for a quick dance at the start of Leader Of The Gang, with this all happening before we get into the greatest hits part of the set. We get a ‘Neat, Neat, Neat’ ending to the main set, before four encore tracks, split in half, bring a heady night of punk and goth goodness to an end.

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