Release date: 15.06.2018
Label: Canary Dwarf / Cooking Vinyl.
Length: 75:50
Rating: 9 / 10
»Live At Hammersmith« is the concert document from British rock outfit The Darkness. You have to wonder what the lads were up to all these years that it took so long to get it out. It’s an outstanding record, taken from the band’s show at London’s Hammersmith hall on 10.12.2017. The band was on the UK leg of the »Tour De Prance« tour at the time, promoting their current record »Pinewood Smile« (2017). A show loaded with pyrotechnics, a ton of shaken-out confetti and everything else rock ‘n’ roll imagination can cook up has been brilliantly captured on this album. But there’s no way we could talk about such an authentic stage orgy of full-blooded fun and a handful of all those lovable silly things if there weren’t four sharply dressed, skin-tight-trousered studs up on that stage, armed with proper glam heresy. In top form. The Darkness come across on this recording so easy and carefree, as if they had finally chased off all the ghosts of their wild past and left them far behind for good.
Justin Hawkins is once again the main magnet. With his crazy vocals and of course his top-notch stage presence, which keeps the outrageous antics coming the whole way through, springing from the rich treasure chest of black humor as the British Isles know it. Anyone who has ever seen one of this bonkers band’s shows can tell you that with The Darkness, it’s not all just about playing the setlist straight. Besides performing the material, so many other things happen at a show that absolutely nobody can stay indifferent. Not even the most hardcore hater of rock ‘n’ roll. Justin’s ridiculously high singing still gives you goosebumps. The band’s parody side also fires on all cylinders. A mix of the music of Queen, Thin Lizzy, AC/DC, Cheap Trick and, if we throw in Sweet or Boston, what the multi-platinum debut »Permission to Land« already embodied, which the band never topped in terms of commercial success, hits on all cylinders and doesn’t skimp on the ultra-high-octane rock ‘n’ roll voltage. Interestingly, the album » Permission To Land« is extremely well represented in the setlist. Clearly the band holds it in high regard, and there’s something more to it. The Darkness are aware of its “weight,” so on this tour, which the London show comes from, they really wanted to deliver the best “right now” to their fans, leaving no room for chance or 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 mandatory 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 makes it almost half of the entire setlist out of 19 songs played in this concert marathon. The current album is represented by three excellent tracks: Soild Gold, the especially grotesque Japanese Prisoner of Love and Buccaneers of Hispaniola, which in their mischievousness only add fuel to the fire. One Way Ticket is definitely not missing, and the album is opened by the excellent Open Fire, with just the right guitar phrase to kick off any The Darkness show, which is joined further on from the album »Last Of Our Kind« by the lucid and sarcastic The Barbarian. A show that doesn’t lose the thread for a single moment across its running time, bursting with every detonation of top-shelf rock ‘n’ roll rhetoric and a brilliantly woven-in “party” moment.
One of the better live documents to come out this year on the rock map of the world. The Darkness sound incredibly relaxed and “liberated” on it, and amid all the staged theater and playground, also remarkably mature, confident and, to a degree, bulletproof. Refreshed, rejuvenated and untamed. Honed to a razor’s edge, in other words, and maximally fired up in the performance. As if it were the last day in the galaxy, right before the apocalypse.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
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
Line-up:
Justin Hawkins – vocals, guitar, piano
Dan Hawkins – guitar, backing vocals
Frankie Poullain – bass guitar, backing vocals
Rufus Tiger Taylor – drums, backing vocals
