Newport, Wales - Media Reviews

Veteran Rockers completely upstaged by support band By Mark Griffiths

It's freezing cold, the national rugby team have just been embarrassed by the minnows of Italy and onstage Ricky Warwick of The Almighty fame is jangling and growling through some truly odious dross. So far, this has not been a good f**king day.

Thank f**k, then, for The Darkness, who bound onstage as though they were headlining Wembley, and for half an hour are the most gloriously OTT stab of pure rock entertainment witnessed in aeons. Frontman Justin Hawkins is a bona fide rock star in the making. It takes some degree of insanity to take to the stage wearing an open-chested, zebra-skin catsuit in this day and age, but when you’re in a band that can belt out true, dyed-in-the-wool instant classics like Love On The Rocks (With No Ice) (which sees Hawkins paraded through the crowd on a roadie’s shoulders while peeling off scorching riffs) and forthcoming single Get Your Hands Off My Woman, then you can get away with it.

It's official: The Darkness are the future of British rock. By comparison, Def Leppard sound very tired indeed. The Sheffield old-timers plod through note-perfect versions of all their classics, plus a few from current album X, and the crowd love it. And we’re talking full-blown hero worship. You get the feeling that Joe Elliott could burp his way through Animal and still get a standing ovation. Yet, on a pure performance level, they were completely left in the dark tonight. As it were.

By Mark Griffiths @ Kerrang! 2003.

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