BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Find Local//findlocal.community//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Denver BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0600 TZNAME:MDT DTSTART:19700308T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0600 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:MST DTSTART:19701101T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:fbb1079a-bea4-4fea-9cfd-5be6fe42b961@findlocal.community DTSTAMP:20261016T153552Z DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20261108T183000 DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20261108T203000 SUMMARY:The Damned DESCRIPTION:People have been arguing about punk rock since the big bang t hat created that high decibel universe. The Damned were at the heart of that revolution and have returned like resurrected vampires to take back the(ir) punk rock crown. Few bands have managed to maintain their manic muse\, few bands have been key catalysts to a musical genre\, few bands have managed to improve like fine old wines and few have managed to do it with such fantastic chaos\, captivating style and shape shifting musi c as The Damned. Their mix of theatrics and raw power combine to create their vaudeville immaculate and gothic horror shivers\, dark music hall anthems and a perfect punk rock. In the rules of rock ’n’ roll most band s fade away but then the Damned were never playing by the rules. One of the originals who sparked the punk rock riot doesn’t mean they had to st ay there. Their trip has been long and thrillingly strange and ‘Darkadel ic’ is a late period triumph that entwines their core obsessions of gara ge/psyche/punk rock old black and white Universal horror film soundtrack s and even moments of sweet jazz which they sieve with a brooding and en thralling melody. This is a tasteful aural experience with exquisite gui tar playing delivered with a breath taking virtuosity but never loses it s inventive punk rock edge. It feels they have been waiting for decades to deal this hand that sees them surpass their early 80s classics such a s Machine Gun Etiquette\, Black Album and Strawberries whilst nodding at what was loved on all those classic albums. From their 1976 formation t o the new album this has been a wild creative trip. Playing by their own rules\, The Damned were the first punk band to release a single in Nov 1976\, the first punk band to release an album and six months later they were the first punk band to release a second album\, they were the firs t punk band to tour America and then the first punk band to split up. Th ey did this all by the autumn of 1977 before most people had cut their h air and even woken up to punk rock. The Damned were then the first punk band to reform and came back with all guns blazing with their third albu m\, 1979’s Machine Gun Etiquette\, and then lurch through the years with their powder keg music\, sartorial style\, innovative takes on psyche a nd goth and even a brush with pop stardom in their grandiose pop goth ph ase of the late eighties. For a form of music that was meant to be of th e moment and flash in the pan\, punk has become a much loved historical epoch and it’s perfect that one of the form’s key originators and one of the most prestigious bands coming out of the 70s scene are the only tru e survivors and are still\, somehow\, at the top of their dark game. Few classic bands still have the inspiration left to make albums and few ma ke albums as good as the aptly named Darkadelic. 2018’s Evil Spirits fin ally established the band in the top ten of the album charts giving the band the confidence to make an even more guitar driven album that celebr ates their garage psych influences that have always been a part of all t heir best work. Taking advantage of the enforced down time of the pandem ic they have been in creative overdrive in the past year either working remotely or in Thomas Mitchener’s studio just outside Watford. The Damne d may have been the punk pioneers but their muse has always been multi d imensional. From their first rehearsal onwards the band were beyond the cliche. They were the only “classic” punk rock band to combine gothic so unds and horror aesthetic with punk music\, shaping a strong identity of their own. They had a baritone crooning vocalist instead of a shouter. They also had great songs and an intense manic energy plus a wild abando n of ideas. The new album brings all these threads together into a perfe ct whole. Their unlikely strange brew of psychedelia\, garage rock\, pun k rock with a gothic twist has never sounded so well realised. It’s this seamless combination of all the dark and fascinating forms of music tha t is the key to the band\, a combination that reflects the oddly diverse core members of the group. You could not get a more unlikely combinatio n of characters into one room if you tried. After four decades the two l eading members of the original line up are as chalk and cheese as ever. The vampiric stylish sex god singer David Vanian is still dealing that 2 4 carat gold croon that pioneered Goth and gives the band a unique dark flavour. The singer is ageless as the mad\, bad and dangerous to know By ronic vampire and is still immersed in the attendant B movie culture tha t he is so imbued with. His partner in crime is the manic songwriter and guitarist/bass player Captain Sensible whose wild stage personae\, hila riously perfect monicker and off the cuff quips sometimes masks his bril liant guitar playing and timeless knack for melody and a creative sensit ivity that is peaking on the album. It’s this fantastically phantasmagor ic bizarre core to the band that is key to their genius. They are the sa rtorial and stylistic creative tension that is the representation of the band’s music. Like all the great bands\, the Damned were always a combu stible creative arms race from the start. They were formed by the foresi ght and genius of Brian James who was famously described by The Clash’s Mick Jones as having the vision for punk a year before anyone else. Bria n also had a fist full of anthems to back his perception up with. Their classic November 1976 New Rose debut single was released a month before the Sex Pistols ‘Anarchy In The UK’ putting a spiky cat amongst the pop pigeons. The Damned should have been huge. They had the tunes\, the styl e\, the moment and the momentum. They hit the road with Trex\, threw up all over the music press and were a thrilling surge of lunatic energy bu t they were hamstrung by being on an indie label and fell apart as other punk bands were catapulted into the mainstream by the majors. Their inf luence from that period though hangs over the worldwide punk scene. The 1977 debut album with its short sharp shocks of songs was a template for many teenage youth working out what punk was and then its insane speed and wild energy was key to American hardcore and beyond. The album’s dar ker moments and shivering aesthetic were riders on the storm harbingers to goth and death rock. As the years rolled by The Damned have been ackn owledged as one of the fundamentals of alternative rock history and one of the most influential groups of all time. They have been acclaimed by a diverse selection of bands that includes Guns N´Roses\, who covered Ne w Rose on Spaghetti Incident\, The Foo Fighters\, Depeche Mode\, Minor T hreat\, The Misfits\, Black Flag\, Bad Brains\, Green Day\, The Offsprin g… That would have been enough for any band but the Damned have remained restless and have survived and thrived. Evil Spirits showed there was s till plenty of creativity in the tank and Darkaledic takes this up sever al notches. Where once they were almost feared for their wreckless and w ild abandon the Damned now are respected for their talent and influence and Darkadelic is the perfect document of this sea change.\n\nTickets: h ttps://www.axs.com/events/1415127/the-damned-tickets\n\nhttps://findloca l.community/event/fbb1079a-bea4-4fea-9cfd-5be6fe42b961 LOCATION:Ogden Theatre\, 935 E. Colfax Ave.\, Denver\, CO 80218 URL:https://findlocal.community/event/fbb1079a-bea4-4fea-9cfd-5be6fe42b96 1 STATUS:CONFIRMED SEQUENCE:0 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR