The Damned
Sydney Opera House
Sydney, NSW, Australia
September 10 2026
Words: ASHLEY THOMSON
Images" CELIA CURTIS
As a young teen, then living on the southside of Brisvegas, I listened to this fledgling radio station run outta the Uni called 4ZZZ. Michael Finucan was doing the heavy lifting of the morning show and introduced me to all this modern high energy music coming out locally and from all around the world, one of those being a punk band called The Damned.
I brought The Damned records from an import record shop in the city and was duly impressed. along with the overall sound I was transfixed by the huge cacophony of the drumming, this wasn’t your dads Ringo Starr, this cunt literally sounded like the Tasmanian Devil on speed. Impressive.
I got the albums as they came out - and BANG! - I got “Machine Gun Etiquette”. Fuck me dead, what a great album. It was an album in the sense of the word "album". Ten songs that all went together. These punk-ass cunts had figured out how to make great albums, and they weren’t constrained like the American hardcore guys. The moods shifted over the album; fast punk, with humour and melody, and reflective at times,. This speedball alleyway, hit-and-run punk band had found something significant and, dare I say it, beautiful in its own way.
This completely solidified with their album “Strawberries” which, in my own humble opinion, is one THE greatest albums ever – in terms of albums being an art form. I still play it. I have my original strawberry-scented copy, still.
Cut to 1987: I first watched The Damned, live. it was at Selinas. the Sydney eastern suburbs monster pub/venue, and the line-up had shifted to Dave and Rat with Roman Jugg and Bryn Merrick. You see, The Damned had shifted from being much a boys band to a girls band. This was the “Eloise” era Damned;. They were till great live, but not the powder-keg/nuke line up that turned hapless teenagers into punks and got the attention of the world. This was a much more lush, Goth Damned
The Damned paint the Sydney Opera House red.
In 1997 I got to see ‘em up close on Sydney’s north shore because a punk rock band I was in supported them in a surfie venue. That Goth goddess from the Gun Club, Patricia Morrison, was playing bass, The Captain was back but no Rat this time. That night, they hammered us with a combustible compilation of old and new material.
The Damned have toured Oz a lot – in 2012, 2017, 2019, 2023 and 2024. They love us and we love them and for good reason. They write great songs and release great fucking albums and they don’t stop - ever. They are the English working class, mate, fucking machines of industry and art. Go on, throw it at ‘em, it won’t make no difference. They are a travelling artistic immovable object as an unstoppable force!
I think in 1985 they were doing a promo visit here in Oz and somehow got kicked out of the Sydney Opera House and permanently banned. As happens with all things, it's comes full circle and that leads us to tonight’s 50th anniversary gig at - yep, you guessed it - the fucking Sydney Opera House.
Rat and Dave.
Tonight, we have a classic unbeatable Damned line up - Dave, Captain, Rat and Paul Gray with Oxymoron on keys (as he has been since ’96.) A magical mix.
Great crowd of true believers of all ages. Hats off to the punters dressed to the hilt in classic Goth attire. Some very stylish attendees indeed, and a lotta punk band T-shirts, Converse shoes and leather jackets.
The band played for an hour solid, then had an intermission, and gave us the killer OG punk set. They still have the goods, and always have had. They got everyone on their feet; we were as one man (or woman).
Then an encore, complete with, for me the life-changing “Smash it Up”. All in all, an evening of solid sonic bliss!
Punk rock changed my life, from playing in punk bands to giving me an entire new friend set. Punk made me “wake up”, changed how I saw the world, gave me the raw truth I needed. It was enlightenment with swearing and speed, and it gave me one of the best eras of my entire life. The Damned were a part of that. Bless those cunts :)
Check out the setlist.
