Punk is not quite dead yet, as evidenced by the hardcore fans that made the effort to dress the part for this high-energy gig by The Damned at the Manchester Academy.

Led by the menacing Dave Vanian, looking not unlike Gomez Addams and the irrepressible Captain Sensible, we were all treated to an overview - of sorts – of the career of the band.

The band’s early hits were all played at 100 mph and even now, thirty years on, the pedal hits the metal from the word go.

Some of the older songs like ‘New Rose’, ‘Love Song’ and ‘Smash It Up’ were enthusiastically welcomed by the packed crowd, and they joined in too.

Of course, the group’s new albnum ‘So, Who’s Paranoid’ was featured with ‘Under The Wheels’, ‘Shallow Diamonds’, the contagiously catchy ‘Dr Woofenstein’ are all new additions to the set list and showed how the band has matured and more to the point, how well they can play!

Captain Sensible is a pretty handy guitarist which heproved time and time again with some amazing solos.

The pick of the new songs was an abbreviated version of the album’s closing track ‘Dark Asteroid’ which they dedicated to Pink Floyd’s Syd Barratt. (The band had wanted Barratt to produce their second album, but Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason did it.) During the song, there was a drum solo involving three drummers! Joining Pinch on smaller kits were keyboard player Monty Oxy Moron and the Captain himself.

The lighter side of Sensible came to the fore as he walked on with a Pot Noodle (referring to the TV ad he did in the eighties) and ended up flicking the noodles into the audience.

“Did I hear someone shout for ‘Happy Talk’?” he shouted and launched into a ‘punk’ version of his solo chart topping hit, and the band’s cover version of Love’s ‘Alone Again Or’ was performed to the delight of the fans.

There was a bit of a disappointment for us all when the band didn’t play their biggest hits ‘Grimly Fiendish’ and ‘Eloise’, but there was enough of the rest to keep everybody happy.

At the risk of making a pun; they were Damned good!