The Damned-Final Damnation: The Reunion Concert (1988) |
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The Damned-Final Damnation: The Reunion Concert (1988) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Music |
Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Damned Story Featurette-Damned Biography Interviews-Cast-Brian James Featurette-Damned Gallery DVD Credits |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1988 | ||
| Running Time | 71:11 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Audio Format Select Then Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | None Given |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Warner Vision |
Starring | The Damned |
| Case | Click | ||
| RPI | $39.95 | Music | The Damned |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame |
English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | None | Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
The Damned, along with the Sex Pistols and The Clash, formed the vanguard of the early UK punk scene.
Recorded on 13 June 1988 at the Town and Country Club, London, this concert brings together the members of The Damned for a one-night-only performance. The first eight songs feature the original line-up of Dave Vanian (vocals), Captain Sensible (bass and lead guitar, and backup vocals), Brian James (lead guitar) and founding member Rat Scabies (drums). The last half of the set has Brian Merrick (guitar) and Roman Jugg (keyboards) mounting the stage for what seemed to be the gothic phase of The Damned's career, circa 1982.
Running for 71 minutes, the concert itself is indicative of the genre, with sloppy playing and high energy levels. Like Glen Danzig, Dave Vanian delivers his vocals with an annoying Elvis Presley twang. Captain Sensible – the clown of the band – enjoys insulting the audience between songs. His tedious banter threatens to drain the life out of the gig (the body language of his band mates suggests that they too have limited patience for his editorials). I suspect that the edits from one track to the next serve to abbreviate some of these detours. Also to this end, a review of the show is read by a mock radio announcer especially for the DVD between songs. This works well, except that the voice-over runs into parts of band playing.
Coverage of the band and the crowd is good, switching between wide angle shots, medium shots, and sweaty close-ups. The audience appears to enjoy the show: the whole mosh pit was thrashing about, not just the section near the stage. Of course, for a revival concert like this one, you would expect most of the punters to be rabid fans. Note that there are no end credits after the concert.
With a few caveats, Final Damnation is recommended to students of punk and certainly to "children of The Damned" itself. As far as punk goes, I personally prefer later bands like The Dwarves, The Dead Kennedys, The Exploited and Bad Religion. Watching Final Damnation provided a neat history lesson in the origins of the species.
| 1. See Her Tonight 2. Neat Neat Neat 3. Born To Kill 4. I Fall 5. Fan Club 6. Fish 7. Help 8. New Rose 9. I Feel Alright | 10. I Just Can't Be Happy Today 11. Wait For The Blackout 12. Melody Lee 13. Noise Noise Noise 14. Love Song 15. Smash It Up 16. Looking At You 17. The Last Time |
The image is soft, shadow details are murky at best, and blacks tend to be dark grey. There is no edge enhancement.
Colours are undersaturated, again showing up the technical shortcomings of the filming process. Patches of strong colour frequently merge into blobs.
Film artefacts are absent, apart from a thin layer of grain. Film to video artefacts are hard to distinguish given the poor condition of the source material. Nothing stood out as an obvious transfer fault.
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Dave Vanian's vocals sound okay. Split across all three front speakers, they are always discernible (when it's possible) with no distortion problems. Captain Sensible's backup vox suffered a bit whenever he tried to sing around the ever-present fag in his mouth. Sync was out occasionally.
The 5.1 mix spreads the music about across a large front soundstage, although it still retains a mono flavour thanks to poor imaging and separation. The rears help to draw the soundstage toward the viewer and deepen the concert-hall effect.
Fidelity is better than expected; the squeaky guitar sound is bright and undistorted, as is Rat's drumming and Roman's synthesizer. Bass lines are hard to follow when all instruments go hammer and tongs, and bass kicks are rarely heard, which is typical of punk music anyway. Sometimes the only way to check for subwoofer involvement was by touching the cone.
Still, turn this baby up loud and expect a satisfying cacophony of good ole' bashing punk, Brit-style. I am sure those living close to Buckingham Palace have heard this Damned concert blasting from the Queen's home theatre room's Royal speakers.
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NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
Final Damnation is also available on CD. Curiously, the band recorded another live show recently, so this DVD may not be the final word.
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| Audio | |
| Extras | |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer DV-737, using Component output |
| Display | Loewe Ergo (81cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Denon AVD-2000 Dolby Digital decoder. |
| Amplification | Arcam AV50 5 x 50W amplifier |
| Speakers | Front: ALR/Jordan Entry 5M, Centre: ALR/Jordan 4M, Rear: ALR/Jordan Entry 2M, Subwoofer: B&W ASW-1000 (active) |