Gig review: The Darkness at Rough Trade

After rocking up to Rough Trade to see a big queue down Broad Street, perhaps due to an overrun from The Darkness’ earlier 5pm show at the same venue, it’s a quick detour over to Jamcafé for a cheeky half pint, before heading back to Rough Trade once the queue has suitably dispersed. As we enter the upstairs room the venue is as busy as ever, with the crowd stretching beyond the walled area and almost to the entrance, everybody trying to get a good vantage point of the stage. Some have even taken to standing on chairs near the bar, just to get a small glimpse of Justin Hawkins and Co lighting up their instruments.

Before long, the band emerge to big cheers, taking their places on the intimate stage area. “Thanks for pre-ordering the album!” Justin says as he greets the crowd, acknowledging that everyone there won’t actually get their physical copies for another four months yet. He then comments on the slightly distracted 5pm crowd, asking everyone politely to keep their phones in their pockets so “we can enjoy our moment together.”

They kick things off with a bang with the aptly titled Rock & Roll Party Cowboy, featuring some mean guitar shreds that surely melted a few faces down the front. Mortal Dread is another stomper, so much so that it sees drummer Rufus accidentally break his bass pedal. Justin presents it to the crowd before bluntly saying: “As you can see, he’s f****d it!” While the pedal gets fixed, Justin treats the crowd to half an acoustic number, before then plugging back in for a different track off the new album. I don’t catch the name of it, but it has a lyric that mentions “beans in rich tomato sauce”. The record’s spiritual title track perhaps?

Walking Through Fire is a highlight, with Hawkins encouraging some audience participation on the chorus with a bit of basic choreography. As he sings “Walking through fire” he asks the audience to walk on the spot in one direction, before turning and doing the same thing in the opposite direction when he sings “Living my life on the wire”. Everyone joins in for what is a fun moment, with Rough Trade momentarily resembling a wedding disco where the DJ has just hit play on the
Macarena.

Official Rough Trade photographer and sometimes LeftLion contributor Jade Vowles is then summoned onto the stage, as Hawkins jokes she had been “photographing the wrong side of his face”. He gets the audience to give her a round of applause and asks her to document this moment. The band launch into fiery recent single The Longest Kiss, which gets easily the biggest reception of the night thus far, as a few people near us begin singing along. Somehow by the end of the performance, he’s also got his tie wrapped around his head like a ninja.

Hawkins confirms the band have one more song, shredding it up once again on brand new, rip-roaring single, I Hate Myself. As the band leave the stage, the crowd cheer, fully expecting The Darkness to come back out for an encore of Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End). After all, it is mid-December and the album isn’t scheduled for release until March ... Why else would they schedule the album launch shows in December if not to align nicely with one of their biggest hits?

Not only that, but the band are selling brilliant festive merchandise tonight, one featuring The Grinch and another with Hawkins taking Macaulay Culkin’s spot on the famous Home Alone poster (which we purchase). It all seems perfectly set up for a special, heartwarming festive moment until… the lights come on and that really is the end of the show. Rough Trade is suddenly just a crowd of disappointed faces heading for the exit, with two ladies in front of me wearing Download festival and Jurassic Park Christmas jumpers respectively, both looking particularly miffed.

Before playing I Hate Myself, Justin had suggested they had been told to play only new material, presumably by the label or their management team – which honestly feels truly baffling. If the album launch show hadn’t been in December but nearer the release in March, and the band hadn’t been playing on the festive spirit with their merchandise, I don’t think the audience would have been left slightly dissatisfied – after all, the new material was sounding fantastic.

However, going down the way it did, this one felt like a bad judgement call and a bit of a misfire, as fans left slightly disgruntled and the band inadvertently took the shine off their new material - which I’m sure wasn’t the intention. Hopefully, this was a lesson learnt for their next album promotion tour - Christmas Time (Please Let The Bells Start).

The Darkness performed at Rough Trade on 11th December 2024.