San Antonio’s Paper Tiger welcomed a bill of UK punk pioneers Wednesday night, headlined by the Damned, a band known both for its smash-and-bash riffage and its trailblazing goth touches.
The night kicked off with TV Smith’s the Adverts, one of the first British punk bands to achieve mainstream success. As the name suggests, only energetic frontman TV Smith remains as a founding member of the group. Despite being 69, he delivered the band’s hard-hitting repertoire with trademark ferocity while sporting a shirt that said “Make Adverts Great Again.”
Speaking with the Current after the show, Smith was cautious about explaining his shirt as a Britton touring America, which he described as the “land of free speech, unless you want to criticize Trump or Musk.” One can hardly blame him after peers such as the UK Subs have been turned away from our shores, reportedly in part for their political views.
The Adverts delivered some of their best known songs, including “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes,” which climbed the UK Singles Chart to the 18th spot in 1977. Though some in the crowd might not have known the legendary Adverts before the show, Smith made sure they would have a hard time forgetting them.
The Damned took the stage with vampiric frontman Dave Vanian sporting a long black coat despite the Texas heat. He’d pared back his trademark corpse-like face paint, sporting just a little shading on his cheek bones to make himself appear more gaunt.
The band ripped into an all-killer, no-filler set starting with the iconic and much-anthologized track “Love Song.”
Similar to the Adverts, the Damned only touched on politics in a cursory way, with guitarist Captain Sensible asking the audience, “Do you have any shit politicians here?” before launching into “Beware of the Clown.”
Other well-known tracks featured in the set included “Neat Neat Neat” and “Can’t Be Happy Today.” The band performed its debut single “New Rose” as part of the first encore. When the members returned yet again, they performed “Smash it Up (Parts 1 and 2).” The group also trotted out its popular covers of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” and Love’s “Alone Again Or.”
The Damned, who pre-date the Sex Pistols, are credited as the first for many things. They were the first UK punk band to cross the pond and tour the United States. They also were the first UK punk band to release a single (“New Rose”) and the first to release a studio album.
Not only were the Damned known for being first, they were one of the most successful acts in the first wave of UK punk. Nine of the band’s singles entered the Top 40 in the UK — not the typical punk experience, to say the least.
But the influence goes even deeper than that. Vanian’s rockabilly vampire look managed to leave an indelible mark on both goth and punk, spawning countless imitators. Swaying his hips with a pomade pompadour and a vintage microphone pressed to his face on Wednesday night, he represented a convergence of multiple genres San Antonio can’t seem to get enough of — rockabilly, goth and punk. No wonder the Paper Tiger crowd went wild.
And come to think of it, add that to the Damned’s cornucopia of firsts. Vanian’s Goth Elvis pre-dates Danzig. Sharing the Misfits’ proclivity for songs about ghouls and goblins, the Damned also played newer material Wednesday by way of “The Invisible Man,” off 2023’s Darkadelic.
Further standing apart from its peers, the long-running band still retains three founding members — Vanian, Sensible and drummer Rat Scabies.
With theatrical and exacting gestures and a flouncy black silk blouse with bedazzled cuffs, Vanian displayed the gentility and mannerisms of a real-life creature of the night, out for blood. And in a way, he was.
Wednesday night settled it. Punk isn’t dead — it’s undead.
