Who’d a thought it – that veritable punk institution The Damned still going after 40-plus years?

The bones might be older (the hair strangely not thinning), but the attitude is still there…and so is the chaos. With The Damned chaos is the norm.

And if the Stones can keep going after all these years, why not the old punks like this bunch, along with Buzzcocks and The Stranglers?

Ever cool vocalist Dave Vanian and effervescent guitarist Captain Sensible were augmented as usual by Monty Oxymoron’s keyboards and Andy Pinching’s drums.

And with bassist Paul Ward’s reappearance in the ranks being hailed as the messiah returning, this was the tightest Damned line-up for some years.

As the red beret-wearing, striped tee shirt- wearing and badge-sporting Capt S, 63-year-old Ray Burns’s comment on ‘still got it’ was not far from the truth.

Vanian can certainly sing, the band can play and they are, gasp, melodic. And it’s not as though The Damned are wholly reliant on former glories as a raw power punk nostalgia band.

Forthcoming first album in a decade, the Tony Visconti-produced Evil Spirits and impressive recent single Standing On The Edge Of Tomorrow were given due consideration.

But virtually everyone inside the ornate venue was there for the hits. And they came, spread through a perhaps slightly too long 105-minute set of tunes from right across the band’s back catalogue.

So Messed Up from the debut elpee preceded New Rose which was followed by Love Story, then the epic Eloise. Neat Neat Neat closed the set with Smash It Up concluding the first encore and Jet Boy Jet Girl wrapping up the evening.

The Strawberries and Black albums featured heavily due to Gray’s reinvolvement whereas I could have done with more from Damned Damned Damned, recognised as the first punk album in 1977 and a true classic of its genre.

Less familiar highlights included Devil In Disguise, Street Of Dreams and the new Evil Spirits track.

Sterling support came from former Stray Cat drummer and all-round rockabilly rebel Slim Jim Phantom whose trio ran through Cats hits and classics such as C’mon Everybody and It’s All Over Now.