Hollywood Vampires, Colchester

The Damned went on before a supergroup containing two of the most famous men in rock and did not appear to care about that at all. Fifty years in, they came across as a band who were enjoying themselves, and it was the most engaged performance of the night.

Captain Sensible spent the set in a red beret and a striped shirt, dropping short comments between songs that were consistently funny, including one about knowing Lemmy. Irreverent is the word. Not try-hard, because he does not need to be.

Dave Vanian went out to the front row and got the crowd singing. New Rose got the biggest response, which is no surprise, but the whole set had the same quality. Calm, at ease, completely inside their own show.

Alice Cooper understands performance. The drama, the mood, the staging, all of it. He is an edgier version of the same thing The Damned were doing, relaxed and fully in it at the same time.

A few songs in he introduced the band's reason for existing, something about honouring dead drunk friends. It was the only real communication with the crowd in the time I was there, and it came from the only person on stage who seemed interested in doing any.

The rest of them barely spoke.

Johnny Depp was affable enough. He smiled at the crowd now and then, nodded at something he found funny, the occasional small acknowledgement. But while he played he was not communicative at all.

Tommy Henriksen was the one I kept noticing, and it took me a while to work out why. He was un-posey. He was not performing being in a supergroup, he was just playing, and as a result you could identify what he was contributing far more clearly than anyone else.

Venus in Furs worked. Depp sang it and it suited him.

Then came People Who Died, and it did not sound good. That is where my enthusiasm died and I left. When I rang for a minicab back to the hotel, the woman on the phone told me someone else had just done exactly the same thing.

The Hollywood Vampires are technically great. The production is great. The concept is interesting and they are almost too cool. What they do not do is work a crowd, not the way The Damned did in their set.

There is a difference between being very good at playing music and giving people a night. Alice Cooper understands that. I am not sure all of the others do.