I saw that The Damned were playing at the Northgate Arena in Chester, I didn’t have any money so I took my beloved ghetto blaster to a pawn shop. The owner could see I really didn’t want to part with it so he gave me £35 and said he’d hold it back for a fortnight and I could buy it back at the same price. It’s July 6th 1985. I got on a train to Chester and met up with other punks who were milling around outside the venue on this sunny afternoon. I hooked up with a girl called Seraphina who I knew from Denbigh. She was like the rebel at the all-girl private school in the town, all dressed in black and fishnets and back-combed hair. We and others drank cider and discussed Rudimentary Peni lyrics on account of my ‘Stone the crows and fuck the pigs’ t-shirt. Seraphina then squirted hairspray down my ear ‘for a laugh’ - I didn’t see the funny side and lost her in the crowd.
The Fuzztones opened the show, they reminded me of The Cramps and I had heard their single Bad News Travels Fast on Peel’s show. My sister Jane tapped me on the shoulder, she was there with her mate Ali Craig, I’d not seen her for a while. The Damned were making a real go of the charts with their new gothic image and Shadow Of Love was in the Top 30 and the album Phantasmagoria was imminent, so it was surprising this venue was only about three quarters full. They opened with the epic Curtain Call and I made sure I was right down the front. It was a good gig, lots of new stuff and they encored with Lust For Life and did a second encore with Rat Scabies on guitar playing Pretty Vacant.
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