The original line-up of The Damned are reuniting for a one-off UK tour
The punk band's founding members Dave Vanian, Rat Scabies, Captain Sensible and Brian James will play four shows next July
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The original line-up of punk outfit The Damned are reuniting for a one-off UK tour – but joked how they have swapped hell-raising for cups of tea.
The founding members Dave Vanian, Rat Scabies, Captain Sensible and Brian James will play four shows next July.
Asked what their vices were these days in their mid-sixties, Rat Scabies, joked: “Ibuprofen.” Captain Sensible added: “Or a cup of tea.”
The band released the single ‘New Rose’ over forty years ago. It pipped the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy In The UK to become the first record released by a UK punk band.
Now after many different line-ups, multiple albums and nine Top 40 Singles, the original band are back together for one tour only.
They revealed their plans yesterday at a socially-distanced press conference at Camden’s Roundhouse venue, in London.
They will play Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester in July 2021.
Captain Sensible said: “We caught the tail end of the period of rock and roll when basically anything went. It was bloody good fun. The booze, the birds, the rock and roll and all the rest we can’t talk about. It was fantastic fun...the abandon, the lunacy. Hopefully we will bring a bit of that back.”
He added of the band’s plans to reunite: “They said it could never happen after all the animosity, but here we are.” But he said: “It would be boring if we didn’t have any rows, as for punch-ups you’ll have to pay more for that.”
On their up-coming tour in 2021 they will celebrate New Rose’s 45th anniversary, as well as perform tracks from the first two albums Their debut album Damned Damned Damned came out in 1977, also the first full-length album released by a British punk band. It included their now most-streamed song, ‘Neat Neat Neat’, currently on 18.2 million plays.
The band were asked by the Sex Pistols to be an opening act for the famous and ill-fated ‘Anarchy Tour of the UK’ in 1976.
They also became the first UK punk band to tour the United States In an interview in 2017, James spoke of how the band fully embraced punk lifestyle at the time. “We used to do a fair bit of speed,” he said. “But we used to drink a lot so we needed it to stay awake.”
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