The Darkness

Nynex Arena, Manchester

Wednesday 1 December 2004

The Darkness?? "The Coldness" might have been a better name for this concert, because no matter how jam packed the venue is, and no matter how much the main act rocks, the fact can't be avoided that putting a rock concert on in an ice hockey stadium in December is just a bit of a risky combination. And tonight unfortunately it detracted somewhat from what was otherwise an excellent concert. I wasn't helped either by sitting at floor level, directly opposite the stage. It felt like I was a mile away.

Enough of my moaning. This was an excellent concert and was well worth making the effort. The saga began a few months ago when I had to make sure I was on the computer at 9:00am when the tickets went on sale. A mark of the impact of The Darkness is that a second night has now been put on.

Not to have gone would have been a travesty. The Darkness are the best new rock group since the glory days of Iron Maiden and Saxon in 1980, and I include in that passing fads and American groups like Nirvana. To say that they are controversial is to put it mildly. Traditional, dyed in the wool rock fans look on them with bare faced hostility and contempt, rather like a crusty old CAMRA member might look upon a pint of smooth pour beer. Indeed, this is a variation on a theme that I have harped on about in other concert reviews: this time the "music fascists” are sitting right inside the home territory of the rock music fan. The more traditional type of music fascist, who despises Rush, is nowhere to be seen when mention of The Darkness comes up. They are generally totally ambivalent, deeming them barely worthy of mention, seeing them as a joke, or else they secretly like and admire them for their bare faced audacity.

I will attempt to prove why both opinions are wrong.

The traditional rock fan SHOULD like The Darkness because they are the very epitome of everything that was good, enjoyable  and fun about the lighter and poppier end of the seventies hard rock scene. It's the type of thing that people like me grew up with every day: Slade, Gary Glitter, Queen, Sweet, T Rex..... I could go on and on. And it doesn't stop there, equally big influences are Van Halen and AC/DC, who came along just a little later. Rather sadly, there really is no hint of an influence from Rush or Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple whatsoever, and it's this that the rock dinosaurs don't like. They think that The Darkness are a bunch of talentless mimics who are taking the Mickey and having a laugh and raking the money in at everyone's expense. Wrong! The musicianship and imagination on show in their debut album and on stage tonight was very impressive. Whilst Deep Purple last month were seasoned old campaigners turning up at the office for one weary last day at the treadmill before they retire, The Darkness were like a bunch of school leavers turning up for their first day at work, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, knowing a fair bit about the job they are going to be doing, but desperate to learn more and to impress lots of people in the process.

The fact that some people see them as a joke is a little unfair. They are no more camp than Queen were, no more glittery than Slade, and no less good musically than almost any classic group you could care to mention. The songs are catchy, memorable, full of excellent musicianship and finely constructed. What’s more, they are gloriously sexist, totally politically incorrect and to boot, choc full of swearing! Indeed, The Darkness are just the antidote to so much of what is wrong in today’s world, both musically and politically. Musically, people have had enough of po-faced seriousness from the likes of U2 and REM and they want something light hearted, anarchic but still of top quality that they can make use of to help escape from the deathly dull dreariness of Tony Blair’s Britain and its breathtaking corruption, hypocrisy and worn out politically correct ideologies. And that is my answer to the traditional music fascist! I suggest that there were plenty of them skulking around at the concert, secretly indulging in a little bit of forbidden luxury, hoping that their mums didn’t see them, rather like a 14 year old schoolboy enjoying a sly fag break behind the bicycle shed!

Almost the whole of the debut album got an airing - perhaps all of it. There was a healthy sampling of new tracks too, and they generally sound quite promising, especially one called "Dinner Lady Arms". At the moment they sound quite derivative of AC/DC and early Queen, but doubtless they will be fine tuned in the studio in due course. At the time I was a bit annoyed that there was an undue amount of messing about and crowd participation. I'm not a fan of this particularly, Rush wouldn't been seen dead doing it. I thought it was an excuse to fill time in due to not having a great deal of material, but on mature reflection I've decided that it's an integral part of their act and it would have been poorer without it. After all, Led Zeppelin would happily spend fifteen minutes on a guitar or drum solo, and the rock purists wouldn't complain about that. Perhaps a little bit less next time though!

There were a few very nice guitar solo flushes. Justin Hawkins is obviously a keen fan of Eddie Van Halen. Thankfully nothing longer than a minute or two though, and certainly no bass or drum solos, it just wouldn't have been right. There was an enjoyable appearance of an eighties style guitar keyboard, and also a fully fledged Rush style synthesizer, but Justin plainly couldn't play either and it just added to the overall gloriously camp effect.

The highlight of the show was Justin riding a stuffed white tiger high above the stage whilst playing a guitar solo. It was so camp and surreal as not to be true, but absolutely brilliant, and  it just blew Deep Purple completely out of the water. The show finished, fittingly, with last year's Christmas single, but thankfully no camp Father Christmas outfits. What a tragedy that it was beaten to number one by one of the most miserable records of all time. It was prefaced by Justin doing a remarkable imitation of the introduction to Band Aid - he had all the singers off pat, it could have been them!

A word must be spared for Ash, the support act. As with the openers at Deep Purple, they are an established act in their own right and could have made a decent stab at selling out the Apollo on their own. They were good, but suffer from one major problem - they can't decide whether they are a drippy, weedy, Guardian Reader beloved group like Travis or Coldplay, or a proper beer drinkers and hell raisers rock group like The Darkness.

A great night, and thank heavens there is a bright new generation of rock music on the way up!

(08.12.04)