{"id":2530,"date":"2018-12-04T05:00:54","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T05:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=2530"},"modified":"2018-11-26T20:15:46","modified_gmt":"2018-11-26T20:15:46","slug":"the-damned-johnny-moped-brighton-dome-19-11-18-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=2530","title":{"rendered":"The Damned & Johnny Moped – Brighton Dome -19-11-18"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Cards on the table, full disclosure but The Damned were the second of my three life-changing first was The Beatles and the third was The Hellacopters. Growing up in Croydon during the 70\u2019s and 80\u2019s you couldn\u2019t really avoid bumping into Captain Sensible either down The Dog & Bull or walking through the demilitarised zone in the Whitgift Centre. The same can be said for Johnny Moped, during their Big Band phase I was one of their Roadies, with original Moped drummer, Dave Berk, coming to my Wedding. So yes, you can call me a fan. At this point, you are probably thinking \u201cIf you\u2019re such a fan how you can be impartial when it comes to reviewing them?\u201d Fair point, but hard-core fans can be the most critical of a band that they love and over the years spent a small fortune on. Between the end of The Damned\u2019s \u201cNot of this Earth\/I\u2019m Alright Jack and the Beanstalk\u201d and the \u201cGrave Disorder\u201d line-up, admitting to still being a fan was fraught with derision and plausible deniability and with the best intentions at heart; technology nixed The Mopeds \u201cThe Search for Xerxes\u201d album.<\/p>\n

But there I was travelling down from East Croydon, both The Damned\u2019s and Moped\u2019s former unofficial spiritual home, to Brighton their new one, for the first date of the \u201cEvil Spirits\u201d Pre Christmas Tour.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Brighton Dome is like a scaled down Royal Albert Hall, also scaled down were the prices at the Bar, which pleased my wallet. Now for those of you Tom Cats that don\u2019t know anything about Johnny Moped he would be the first to tell you he is 80% disabled. There is a Spectrum dedicated solely to Johnny, Chrissie Hynde was sacked from the band, twice, Dee Dee Ramone loved them and Michael Stripe cited them as influential, I kid you not.\u00a0 At the appointed time of 8\u2019o clock Johnny Moped, the band, wondered on stage with guitarist Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Robot asking where their esteemed leader was, before Johnny Moped, the man, appeared from the wings like some papal figure. With a quick \u201cOne, two, cut yer hair\u201d the band were off with \u201cIncendiary Device\u201d which led into another \u201cCycledelic\u201d classic \u201cPanic Button\u201d that features probably the greatest line of all time \u201cPicking off my acne \u2018cause I haven\u2019t had a meal\u201d. The band didn\u2019t rest on past glories with a healthy dose of material culled from 2016\u2019s \u201cA Real Cool Baby\u201d album fitting in perfectly. Talking of culling; \u201cSave The Baby Seals\u201d from the \u201cXerxes\u201d album made a welcome appearance. For \u201cDarling Let\u2019s Have Another Baby\u201d brief keyboard playing member Francesca joined Johnny on vocals to replicate the Kirsty McCall and Billy Bragg version of it. Unlike Francesca, Kirsty had not discovered both the Moped\u2019s and Damned\u2019s alcohol quota for the whole tour and drunk the lot. Over a very short period of time. On an empty stomach. This was not lost on Johnny as he dedicated the next track \u201cCatatonic\u201d to her. Johnny Moped are very much a Marmite\/Brussel Sprout band. You either get them and get them big time or you wonder what the heck just happened. With the band finishing with the Roxy Album classic \u201cHard Lovin\u2019 Man\u201d I think the partisan Damned crowd got them big time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>For a 9 year period, The Damned were happy to rest on their laurels, to gig and tour without a new product to promote, knowing that their fans, like me, were all to easily appeased, happy to hear live material that was mainly recorded during the chaos years of 1976 – 1986. All that changed with the Fan Funded album \u201cEvil Spirits\u201d, which raised enough money to be recorded in NYC with Tony Visconti on production duties. Cited as being what \u201cPhantasmagoria\u201d would\u2019ve sounded like had Captain not left and with \u201cBlack Album\u201d\/\u201dStrawberries\u201d era bassist Paul Gray returning it was a win, win<\/em> situation. An album fans bought and an album fans wanted to hear played live. However, it was \u201cBorn to Kill\u201d from the band\u2019s debut album that kicked things off with the somewhat apt \u201cDemocracy?\u201d, from the band\u2019s 2001 album \u201cGrave Disorder\u201d following on. \u201cStanding on the Edge of Tomorrow\u201d was the first of 4 songs taken from \u201cEvil Spirits\u201d, but nothing from \u201cMusic for Pleasure\u201d, not even \u201cStretcher Case\u201d, nothing from \u201cPhantasmagoria\u201d, \u201cAnything\u201d, \u201cI\u2019m Alright Jack\u201d (as if, but please<\/em>) or even \u201cSo, Who\u2019s Paranoid?\u201d. Early fans might\u2019ve bulked at \u201cGrimily Fiendish\u201d and \u201cEloise\u201d but these tracks introduced a whole swath of new fans to the Damned and their back catalogue, in the same manner as \u201cLove Song\u201d enticed fans of the NWOBHM back in 1979, so their omission was puzzling. (\u201cAlone Again Or\u201d from \u201cAnything\u201d was added to later dates).\u00a0 Much has been made over recent years over the maturity of David Vanian\u2019s vocals, but the surprise for me were Captain\u2019s vocals on \u201cSilly Kids Games\u201d; like Vanian\u2019s they have become much more measured, warming and fuller sounding. I only wish that the demo lyrics of \u201cBalls to Monkhouse, fuck off Forsyth, piss off \u00a0Parsons\u201d would be reinstated and I\u2019m sure, talking of original lyrics, during \u201cSmash it Up\u201d Dave sang \u201cI don\u2019t wanna end up like Rudolf Hess\u201d but I could be wrong. Original Damned guitarist Brian James lives in Brighton, with Captain, just before playing the James penned tune \u201cOne of the Two\u201d asking if he was in the audience and if he was \u201cto get up on stage where he belongs\u201d Sadly he wasn\u2019t. The Damned 2018 come across much more professional, I, thankfully, can\u2019t remember the last-time I saw Captain strip off, even if for \u201cThere Ain\u2019t No Sanity Clause\u201d the whole band sported Father Christmas hats procured from the local Pound shop. Travelling back to East Croydon Train Station the next day I spotted around the Haywards Heath area some fantastically wealthy looking houses that backed onto a lake with their own wood. Slap bang in the middle of this private arboretum, with no noticeable access, was a 1970\u2019s caravan that looked like it was missing its Robin Reliant. The caravan, with its burst corners, looked like some invisible giant foot had exerted just enough pressure to \u201cpop\u201d it rendering it this way. For some strange reason, this totally summed up The Damned and Johnny Moped the previous day.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy The Damned Here<\/a><\/p>\n

Website<\/a><\/p>\n

Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Johnny moped Website<\/a><\/p>\n

Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

Pictures by kind permission from Jamie Macmillan Photos<\/a><\/p>\n

Author : Armitage Smith<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cards on the table, full disclosure but The Damned were the second of my three life-changing first was The Beatles and the third was The Hellacopters. Growing up in Croydon during the 70\u2019s and 80\u2019s you couldn\u2019t really avoid bumping into Captain Sensible either down The Dog & Bull or walking through the demilitarised zone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[793,792,147],"class_list":["post-2530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-review","tag-armitage-smith","tag-jamie-macmillan-photos","tag-the-damned","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2530"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2538,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions\/2538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}