Crud World Domination Enterprises give you

DEAD MEN WALKING

Central Station, Wrexham
28.09.2005

(review and pix by Paul Scouse Git)

What a crazy night! Myself and The Dean don't get out as much these days due
to working and family commitments but last night we had the choice of three
things. Do we go see the German band with the fit girl singer on at Blu in
Rhyl? or go watch Dead Men Walking in Wrexham?, then there was the small
matter of Liverpool v Chelsea in the Champions league! After much soul
searching we decided to try combine the latter two.



We opted for an early start leaving Rhyl at 6 to try get to Wrexham early to
watch the game. We arrived at Central Station at 7 only to find it closed
and not open until 9pm. Braving the rain we ended up in a back street Irish
pub called 'Scruffy Murphys' which it definitely was! We had to endure half
of Coronation Street before the footy finally come on. As the pubs sound
system burst into life I thought we were in Iraq due to the noise from the
speakers that sounded like gunfire! Oh and it didn't stop and to make
matters worse the commentary was in Arabic! Then when a drunken guy decided
to ride his bike right through the pub and crash into the bigscreen it was
time to go! We quickly necked our pints and headed off back into town to try
find a pub with English commentary. We eventually settled in South Central
with the big screen and Scottish commentary from Andy Gray!



After yawning our way through the football we headed off for Central Station
to watch Dead Men Walking. The band had just started as we arrived and
there was a sizeable crowd already in there. This was our 1st DMW gig and we
didn't really know what to expect, although we were particularly looking
forward to seeing Captain Sensible. The line up was Kirk Brandon
(Spear Of Destiny) - Guitar & Vox, Mike Peters (The Alarm) - Guitar & Vox,
Slim Jim Phantom (Stray Cats) - Drums & Vox, and Captain Sensible (The
Damned) Bass & Vox.

The 1st thing I noticed was how good they all still look, even in their mid
40's now, no pot bellies and they've all still got hair! (Bastards!).  There's
real intimacy about these gigs also and the Captains presence brings a
certain comedy and humorous aspect the proceedings too, he's a real showman,
I was also surprised to see what a good bass player he was given his two
finger keyboard playing techniques!



Musically I was probably expecting more of an acoustic night and although
there was some acoustic numbers, the set was mainly electric which included
Spear of Destiny tracks - 'Mickey', 'Never Take Me Alive' and 'Westworld',
Alarm Tracks - 'Blaze Of Glory', 'Spirit Of 76, '68 Guns' and the brilliant
'45rpm'. Damned tracks - 'Smash It Up' and 'Neat, Neat, Neat', Stray Cats
tracks - 'Runaway Boys' and 'Stray Cat Strut'.

Add to these encore covers The Clash 'I fought the law' and The Sex Pistols
'Pretty Vacant' and that's one pretty mean set list!



Absolute highlight of the night though had to be The Captains hilarious
impromptu acoustic performance of 'Happy Talk' at the end of which he fell
over to a chorus of "Sensible's a wanker!". Well he's good at it!!!!!!



As individuals playing in their own respective bands its fair to say that,
Kirk, Mike, Captain and Jim's heady days of chart success are probably behind
them. However, with the entity that is now 'Dead Men Walking' the appeal now
is more than just the music, they have become accessible. These men have
been plying their trade for a long time now and remain heroes to many, for
the audience to be able to interact in the performance with the band, then
meet and chat with them afterwards is a great thing, hence mine and Dean's
delight at meeting the legendary Captain Sensible himself after the gig. I
also spoke to Kirk Brandon later on who said, "Playing with the Dead Men"
gives them a break from the serious side of performing with their own bands"

Captain Sensible achieves a life-long ambition when he meets Dean and Paul from PSST



Don't get me wrong 'Dead Men Walking' is not 4 old boys with zimmer frames
doing a comedy show, hit after hit of timeless punk classics is pure
testament to that, and when you think of how we spent the earlier part of
the night watching overpaid inaccessible footballers boring us shitless it
puts a lot of things into perspective.
Final quote from the Captain
"How can there be a god when Cilff Richard is still on the planet and Joe Strummer isn't?"

isn'tBack to Gig Index

link2wales.co.uk