A 60th birthday is an august occasion to be marked with quiet dignity and a degree of gentle musing on mortality. Or, alternatively, by pogoing around a stage clad in a fluffy red beret, tartan trousers and a stencilled jacket that bears the legends "Fuck Off" and "OAP: Old Age Punk".

As Captain Sensible of the Damned enters his seventh decade tonight, his love of slapstick and fancy dress shows no sign of abating. It has meant that his band have routinely been regarded as a cartoon, despite their venerable status. Credited with releasing both the first punk single and punk album, they played their debut tour 37 years ago, supporting T Rex. Only Sensible and gothic-camp vocalist Dave Vanian remain from that original line-up, and tonight the band have made the tickets £1.70 to reflect 1977 prices. This mood of self-indulgent nostalgia marks the evening, with Sensible gurning out at a flailing middle-aged mosh pit as he transforms his 1982 solo novelty, No 1 Happy Talk, into a 1-2-3-4! thrash.

At their best, the Damned remain a knotty, irresistible adrenalin rush of a band. Their 1976 debut single New Rose is still an inchoate, incoherent but brilliantly thrilling call to arms, while Neat Neat Neat is the essence of teenage amphetamine angst, Vanian spitting out the words as if they are a particularly vehement accusation.

Yet mostly the Damned play their barbed bubblegum rock for laughs, as they have done since 1977. It makes for a deeply entertaining evening, and as Sensible staggers, submerged beneath balloons and silly string at the close of yob-anthem encore Smash It Up, he finds the perfect words to round off his raucous 60th: "Happy New Year, everybody!"

• At O2 ABC, Glasgow, 26 April. Box office: 0844 477 2000. Then touring. Tour website: Official Damned