This was a surprise gig. Ross had covered the Wolverhampton date for us recently so I wasn’t expecting to be heading to the Royal Concert Hall, and on the one day I’m away at a conference I got home to an email (sent at midday) by a generous PR company offering a pair of tickets. Time I checked email: 7pm. Time doors opened: 7pm. Cue frantic dash trying to find a friend to go with!
Due to the late notice, I missed openers Ash which is a shame as I know they’re damn good and as far as I can recall I’ve not seen them since some festival about 15 or more years ago. I was there in good time to grab a comfy seat (there were a lot of standing tickets, but it’s a concert hall after all) for The Darkness.
The last time I saw them was a co-headliner with Blackstone Cherry at The Hydro, a much bigger venue. The thing with The Darkness, though, is it doesn’t matter where they play. They’re here for fun and to rock your socks off. They’d do that at a festival stage or your granny’s parlour. Tonight was every bit a standard Darkness show from beginning to end.
With almost two hours on stage, they played fifteen songs though could have crammed in maybe 3 more without the audience interaction… but then it wouldn’t be a Darkness show. The setlist was a decent mix, surprisingly leaning quite heavily on new album Dreams on Toast which isn’t out until Friday. Five songs featured from the new release, and they blended in with the better-known material well enough. Permission To Land took up the bulk of the music and to my ears is still the best overall album they’ve released so I was happy with that.
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Dotted around were other tracks like “Barbarian”, “Japanese Prisoner of Love”, “Motorhead”, “My Only” and “Heart Explodes”, but it’s that audience involvement that made the show so enjoyable. New song “Walking Through Fire” includes some funky new moves with the whole crowd marching one direction then another during the chorus. Which sounds silly and cheesy (and therefore perfectly The Darkness), but which looks amazing when you see several hundred people doing it.
Justin made his usual shoulder-high jaunt through the crowd during “Love on the Rocks With No Ice”, and talked an amazing amount of humorous bollocks during between-song breaks. Drummer Rufus Tiger Taylor (very closely related to someone from another well known rock band) stepped up to the front of the stage during one song (sorry, I didn’t note which!) and took over vocal duties while his drum tech did the tub-thumping. And both did a great job.
Throw in some snippets of other songs (“Welcome Tae Glasgae” and bizarrely “Christmas Time”), dozens of riffs from third party numbers as part of the “we’re not finished yet” grand finalé, a dazzling light show, top notch sound and a typically mad Glasgow audience and… well, it was a Darkness show like any other. Nigh on two hours of switch-off-brain rock-and-roll fun-and-games.
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Photos by Gary Cooper
