A belated review of the Darkness gig I saw in Brisbane last Wednesday.

The week was a busy one for me – I was organising and facilitating week-long training that included a bunch of interstate/international fly-ins, and I groaned when I realised that the concert tickets I had purchased six months before landed square in the middle of that week. I saw the Darkness back when Permission to Land was first released and they were just gaining traction, playing the midday slot at a festival to an entering crowd who they quickly won over. The Datsuns followed them and seemed like a high-school band having their second rehearsal in dad’s garage.

PTL is a genuinely fantastic album that is everything its fans and detractors say it is: AC/DC hooks, Queen vocals, bombastic production, lyrics that are both puerile and hilarious, and melodic hooks. It was released at a very stressful juncture in my life and the sheer fun of it gave me much comfort through that period. It and the Scissor Sisters debut that came out at a similar time were billed as greatest-hits first albums and I agreed heartily with those assessments.

So it was that last » Continue Reading.