Venue:
The Roundhouse, Camden
Date: 20/12/2019
Starting a night like tonight with “Rock n Roll Deserves To Die” from their new album “Easter Is Cancelled” could have been seen as a self full filling prophecy by some. Not it seems by Justin Hawkins and his band. They flew into this raucous blast at the hand that feeds them with tongue as always firmly in cheek. Justin, brother Dan, Frankie and Roger Taylor’s (Queen) son kicked off a two hour rampage of lights, fireworks, sweary backdrops and heavy metal drama and didn’t take a breath. Doing “Easter Is Cancelled” in full was another brave step but they know their craft, know their audience and just fucking know. It’s a collection of new but familiar songs straight from the heavy metal handbook. Just brilliant fun with Justin’s truly astonishing operatic voice leading the way. The crowd loved it but the anticipation for the second half of hits was everywhere.
It duly kicked off with “One Way Ticket To Hell and Back” and the metal levels went up to twelve. Thirteen songs in before they dipped into “Permission To Land” with a storming “You’re Really Growing On Me”. A cover of Radiohead’s “Street Spirit” was followed followed by my personal highlight. “Get Your Hands Off My Woman”. It ended with Justin vs the audience in a “fuuuuuucker” battle which could only have really been followed by “I Believe In A Thing Called Love”. What a night, a hot, sweaty, metal night. But there was more, of course there was. The encore with Justin stripped to the waist but in a Santa hat gave us their Christmas classic “Bells End”. We all went home delirious and delighted that we’d brought some Darkness into our lives….
The audience:
A broad mix from metal heads to bald heads and everything in between. A mix of head banging and head shaking
It made me think..
It’s not a foregone conclusion that The Darkness teeter into Bad News parody territory. They come perilously close but real musicianship, showmanship and brinkmanship keep them firmly in the Rock God category. They’re the band Bon Jovi could never be.
Sounds great. A true story, I was at a Darkness concert once and didn’t see them for a second, I was too busy drinking with and chatting to a girl I fancied. They were supporting The Stones, guess I have heard them live ….
I hear The Darkness a lot at the moment, as they provide the theme and incidental music to Grace’s Amazing Machines, a kind of CBeebies version of Top Gear. It’s very disorientating.
I saw them in the upstairs room of a pub on the Norfolk Broads on a lads “boating holiday” (week-long floating pub crawl). They were great live even then, much better than any pub band had the right to be.
Musically not really my bag, I’ve never felt the need to own any of their records, but I’d happily see them live or on a festival lineup.
I meant to have added in my review that the Saturday sunset slot at Glastonbury is made for The Darkness…
This is brilliant from one time Word blogger @PatCarty Also explains why they’ll never do Glastonbury
https://www.hotpress.com/music/drink-feck-arse-guitars-darkness-man-carty-tour-ireland-22799378?fbclid=IwAR2me_5IL_aekzFJea_S_lnzbR2lCcbA5AAd6WRS1YRopNrNKcGQlHd3l7I
Brilliant stuff as usual from the Patster. “Justin introduces me as the greatest writer in the world, which even I think is over playing things.”
A uni friend of Mrs Moose went out with Justin wossname way back in the 20th century. He was a “bit of a one” apparently, whatever that means.
Saw them at a Big Day Out festival in the early 2000s here in Oz and they were the highlight of a day that included Metallica, Strokes, Flaming Lips, Green Day, Kings of Leon (supporting their first album) and numerous others. Unknown when they were booked, so they were on at about midday on a very hot day, Justin in full catsuit. Any sniggering in the drunk Aussie bogan crowd stopped pretty quickly. I remember that the Datsuns came on immediately after and sounded frankly pathetic in comparison.
A mate of mine was part of Justin and Dan’s circle of friends pre-Darkness. He said that Justin was meek and shy and they were all a bit apprehensive when it was announced he was going to be the frontman for Dan’s band. I think he was the rare case of a bedroom performer who could make the transition to stage fully formed.
Anyway, after loving the first album I didn’t think much of the second album and haven’t explored anything more recent.