The Damned returned to New York area after having to cancel a string of shows around the New Year due to illness. It is worth noting that The Damned supported T. Rex in the 70s and have been steadily releasing albums since, including the very decent album, “So, Who’s Paranoid?” late last year. For the most part, I am not not particularly familiar with their seminal early work, but I definitely took a shine to the New Wave/Goth mid 80s album, Phantasmagoria, which has the killer track, “Shadow of Love”. I saw The Damned in Berlin in the early ’90s and I was a bit disappointed that they were dismissive of anything off of Phantasmagoria and were “returning to their earlier punk roots” and therefore largely played tracks off of their 70’s catalog. As I have noted several times here, I am pathologically annoyed with bands that dismiss recent material in favor of “classics”. (For one, Captain Sensible, has a great voice that is frankly best suited in the sustained vocals that he features in that album.)
I didn’t go to this recent show and am now regretting it. For starters, Their new stuff is worth checking out and it turned out that they played “There’ll Come a Day”. Fortunately, a died in wool Damned fan recorded this show at the recent show in New Jersey. This is a cover of Love’s “Alone Again Or”.
[audio: http://www.thesoundofindie.com/archive/2009/20090616/TheDamned-AloneAgainOr.mp3|titles=Alone Again Or (Live)|artists=The Damned]Download: The Damned – Alone Again Or (Live)
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