Love that! Not heard it before. He's a brave man putting his workmanlike voice next to such a great voice. Works though.
In advance of tomorrow's gig at The Shepherd's Bush Empire (old school!), here's the boys from a few weeks ago taking the piss out of PiL and starting Pretty Vacant. Back 4 decades ago, it was part of the set from time to time. Rat would take over the guitar and Captain would drum.......where the **** has the time gone? Worry not Spurf and other new fans, I'll be posting some footage from Friday when it appears on YouTube. Paul's playing, so I'll definitely be on his side of the stage, about 8-10 back from the front (always the best spot, based upon many decades of research). Look out for my balding, enormous head. Maybe I'll see you there...?
I wasn't going to post any more Damned stuff........before footage from Friday but this popped up on the right hand side of the screen and.......well, what the hell? I know you all love it. A little while ago, I posted Patricia Morrison playing, from her time with the band. This clip contains the reason that she departed the line-up......her and Dave's daughter Emily, here playing the violin part on Curtain Call. She's only 14 in this clip but she's going to be a beauty, not surprising, when you consider who her parents are...
Love Kirsty's stuff. I'd not heard that before and as a huge Clash fan, I approached it with some trepidation. I should have known much better... It directed me towards a live performance of the same track from the band's last ever performance, which then pushed me towards this. It really emphasises how different live performance can be from the studio recording. Personally, music's a live thing and I love bands chopping stuff up and producing something very different from how they wanted it to sound years before. Here's 2 very different versions of the same song. One's a faithful gospel sound version and the other's a live rockabilly stormer. Which do I prefer? It's closer than you might think as The Clash taking on gospel is a total mind ****... Gospel... Rockabilly...
A fabulous gig on Saturday. It was the best that I've seen the boys play for 35 years, since Paul left. You just can't overstate how much the audience dictate what happens. Saturday's was UP FOR IT. I mean REALLY up for it. From the moment Johnny Moped came on stage, you could tell it was going to be a good night. First number by The Damned and the place errupted. I met a number of friends, old and new and everyone agreed it was a top, top performance. Here's the first 3 brilliant tracks from 'The Black Album'... Later on, Dave tried to quiet the audience participation in 'Ignite'. Where some audiences have to be cajoled to start, this one wasn't stopping. Dave gave up, the band kept playing and the audience sang on...and on....and In the final number, 'Smash it Up' Dave decided to spend the intro in the mosh pit and despite Captain calling him back, he signalled he wasn't coming back for a while. I haven't seen that for so long. After the standard 2 encores that were demanded by the crowd, the band came back on "We've been told that we've got time for one more..." Cue Anti-Pope and total bedlam as people who were half way out of the venue ran back in... You can't plan for that kind of magic. Some nights have it, you just have to be there...Here's 'Sanity Claus' from the second encore Next day, I did £180 on merch on the website, even taking into account the Black Friday 20% discount. Still, Mrs B and I will look 'special' in matching Christmas jumpers... please log in to view this image