Memories of The Damned

Hi, this is John Blazing writing once again, talkin 'bout Rock and Roll memories for RedHotGear.com. This time it's about The Damned.

It was 1980, the 2nd time The Damned came to Southern California. My friend called me and informed me that he had called a New Wave radio station called KNAC and had won some tickets to see The Damned at The Country Club in Reseda. I was very excited. The first punk rock song I ever learned on guitar was "New Rose".

I got back stage somehow, and was taking in all the action. This tour was supposed to make or permanently break the band. After all, they went on to do some big tours in the U.K. with some big names in the punk rock scene, The Sex Pistols and the Stranglers.

There were lots of colorful people there at the Country Club. When The Damned hit the stage at about 11PM, it seemed that Captain Sensible had left his former stage costumes of tutus and nurse's uniforms and went with a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.

The audience was reasonably well-behaved. As I was watching Chris "Rat Scabies" Miller pound his drums like crazy and occasionally using his head; I started to understand why a lot of people were going around saying he should've went on to replace Keith Moon of The Who (Keith had just passed away). From an excellent vantage point I saw the huge audience going crazy and totally rocking out. The group mixes above average cover versions of "Ballroom Blitz" and Pretty Vacant" (How's that for balls?). After that they played a sampling of tunes from their first two Stiff Records albums, "Damned Damned Damned" and "Music For Pleasure". Weeks before The Damned had released their single "Love Song". It sold over 45,000 copies and entered the U.K. charts ahead of Rod Stewart.

It was a great show by a young enthusiastic punk rock band.