Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Darkness, The
Label: Cooking Vinyl
Release date: June 15, 2018
Running time: 75:50
Rating: 4.5/5
»Live At Hammersmith« is a live document from British rockers The Darkness. You have to wonder what on earth the guys were up to all these years that we had to wait so long for it. It’s a superb record, taken from the band’s show at London’s Hammersmith venue on December 10, 2017. The band were on the UK leg of the »Tour De Prance« tour at the time, promoting their latest record, »Pinewood Smile« (2017). A show loaded with pyro, a tonnage of shot-out confetti and everything else the rock and roll imagination can cook up has been brilliantly captured on this album. Of course, you couldn’t talk about such a raw onstage orgy of full-blooded fun and a heap of lovable silliness if there weren’t four sharply dressed, skin-tight stallions up there, armed with proper glam heresy. And in top form, too. On this recording, The Darkness sound so easy and carefree, as if they’ve finally chased all the ghosts of their wild past away and left them far behind.
Justin Hawkins is once again the main magnet. With his crazy vocals and, of course, a top-notch stage presence that keeps the outrageous antics coming, all drawn from the rich treasury of black humor the British Isles are known for. Anyone who has ever seen one of this bonkers band’s gigs can tell you that with The Darkness, it’s not just about playing the repertoire. Alongside the songs, so many other things happen at a show that nobody can possibly stay indifferent. Not even the most hardened rock’n’roll hater. Justin’s ridiculously high singing still gives you goosebumps. The band’s parodic side fires on all cylinders too. A mix of Queen, Thin Lizzy, AC/DC, Cheap Trick and, if we throw in Sweet or Boston, the multi-platinum debut »Permission to Land« embodies it all. The band never topped it commercially, and it hits on all cylinders without skimping on the ultra-high-octane rock’n’roll voltage. Interestingly, the album » Permission To Land« is very well represented in the set. Clearly the band hold it in very high regard, and there’s more. The Darkness are aware of its »weight«, so on this tour, which the London show comes from, they wanted to give their fans the best of »right now«, leaving virtually nothing to chance or to any potential »tactical slip-up«. From the debut we get the big hits Growin’ On Me, Get Your Hands Of My Woman, Love Is Only A Feeling, the absolutely obligatory I Believe In A Thing Called Love, plus Black Shuck, Givin’ Up, Stuck In A Rut, Friday Night and, last but not least, Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End), which also comes from the special Christmas edition of that album for the European market. That’s almost half of the whole set, out of 19 songs played in total at this concert marathon. The latest album is represented by three great tracks: Soild Gold, the especially grotesque Japanese Prisoner of Love and Buccaneers of Hispaniola, which with their tongue-in-cheek humor just pour oil on the fire. One Way Ticket is of course there, and the show opens with the superb Open Fire, with the guitar phrase that kicks off every single The Darkness concert, joined later by the lucid and sarcastic The Barbarian from the album »Last Of Our Kind«. A show that doesn’t lose the thread for a second across its running time, bursting with detonations of top-shelf rock’n’roll rhetoric and a brilliantly woven-in »party« spirit.
One of the better live documents to come out this year on the world’s rock map. The Darkness sound unbelievably relaxed and »liberated« on it, and for all the staged theater and fun, also remarkably mature, confident and, to a degree, bulletproof. Refreshed, rejuvenated and untamed. As fired up as they can be, in short, and playing with maximum bite. As if it were the last day in the galaxy, right before the apocalypse.
Line-up
Justin Hawkins – vocals, guitar, piano
Dan Hawkins – guitar, backing vocals
Frankie Poullain – bass guitar, backing vocals
Rufus Tiger Taylor – drums, backing vocals
Tracklist
01. Open Fire
02. Love Is Only A Feeling
03. Southern Trains
04. Black Shuck
05. One Way Ticket
06. Givin’ Up
07. All The Pretty Girls
08. Barbarian
09. Buccaneers Of Hispaniola
10. Friday Night
11. Makin’ Out
12. Every Inch Of You
13. Solid Gold
14. Stuck In A Rut
15. Get Your Hands Off My Woman
16. Growing On Me
17. Japanese Prisoner Of Love
18. Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)
19. I Believe In A Thing Called Love
