Gig 049 The Damned / Japan

Gig 049
The Damned / Japan
Oxford College of Further Education
11 February 1978

For about a fortnight in 1977 The Damned were the main event, great reviews, TV appearances, famous fans. Things moved quickly and by early 1978 they were looking down-at-heel; their Nick Mason-produced second album (they had wanted Syd Barrett, which would have been interesting) was a bit rubbish, they were out of favour with the press and seemed to have forgotten how to write songs. In what looked like an act of desperation they had recruited another guitarist, Lou Edmonds, who while perfectly capable as a musician had upset that appealing 4-character cartoon dynamic – it was like a fifth Beatle or a fifth Monkee, just wrong. Still there was an audience for them, several of whom were starting to identify as hardcore punks, and they were out for this gig.

Punk was by this time both diversifying and becoming codified, a particular reading of the ethos insisting that anything beyond a musically, visually and intellectually rudimentary approach was a form of betrayal. Fast songs, noisy barre-chords, spiky hair and shouted sloganeering lyrics were good, anything beyond this not so much. Gobbing was a sign both of appreciation and contempt. The opening act for the Damned were called Japan. Musically, while definitely not ‘punk’ as we knew it, they were quite forgettable; visually they were the New York Dolls circa 1973, all long dyed hair, glam posturing and Kensington Market satin and tat. They drew a knot of hostile punks to stagefront, whom they delighted in antagonising with their effete preening and metrocentric yokel-baiting, which climaxed with the singer clobbering a punk with a mic stand and the bass player kicking a monitor off the stage in the direction of his tormentors. They exited under a hail of booing and plastic glasses.

Japan had fulfilled the function of punk warm-up act in that they had created an appropriately rancorous atmosphere in anticipation of the headline act, and so The Damned’s set was received with a greater than average measure of pogoing and gob, plus numerous stage invasions. I had started to notice on the Oxford punk scene a crowd centred around Banbury Art College, some of whom I eventually got to know quite well, and who were out in force for this gig. One of their number, who stood out from the rest of the gang by virtue his prop-forward’s physique, repeatedly climbed on stage and was pushed back by various roadies. After several trespasses the roadies had had enough, and instead of returning him to the crowd dragged him across the stage and kicked him out the back door, in response to which he charged back to the main entrance, straight past the ‘security’ and within two minutes was back on stage, to great hilarity among the audience and to the bemusement of the group. In the midst of all this chaos The Damned did their best; Dave Vanian was still – and remains – a unique front man, but at this stage they were sounding a bit lost. A year later Brian James would be gone, Captain Sensible would take artistic control and they’d be more successful (and cartoon-ish) than ever.

Rumour had it that after the gig some of the punks had waited for Japan to leave the venue and gave them a good pasting. As time went by I came to like some of Japan’s and David Sylvian’s work, probably more than The Damned to be honest. Obviously I couldn’t condone this sort of violent recrimination, if indeed the story is true. On the other hand they were right prats that night.