THE DARKNESS

With The Dead Deads

Royale
Boston, Massachusetts
April 24, 2022

Photos & Review by Michael LaFleche

BOSTON, Mass. – For the final stop of their latest tour, The Darkness had Permission to Land at the Royale in Downtown Boston for a fun and electrifying show.

Opening for the UK glam rockers were the great Tennessee-based, Dead Deads. This band revels in punk metal grunge rock, and can go from a light sonnet to hardcore punch in an instant. I left the room for a minute and almost had whiplash when coming back into the theater and nearly had whiplash from the sudden change of tone, which I love! The Dead Deads are a trio, composed of McQueen on drums, Daisy on bass and Meta on the guitar. They really are pretty cool, and were a great compliment to The Darkness coming up.

DEAD DEADS photo gallery

The UK based band was next and were extremely ready and began the show a few minutes early! I’ve never seen that happen! Perhaps they had some surprises or they just wanted to get home. But they didn’t look tired. They were in fine shape to deliver from their latest album Motorheart, plus some of the classic glam hard rock they have perfected in the post UK Glam Hair metal era.

The band is made up of the inestimable Justin Hawkins on lead wailing and guitar, and his brother Dan on the lead axe, Frankie Poullain the extremely stylish bass man, and newer member of the band, who has percussion in his blood, the great Rufus Taylor, progeny of Queen’s Roger Taylor. I must say it is somewhat entertaining when I see Justin wailing on his mic, and the tattoos of all the Queen band mates on his fist. Who’d have thought that when Justin got that tattoo that his bandmates dad would be there! Once again, a great thing I think!

On with the show… Justin in a lovely pink, personalized jumpsuit, led the roaring and filled Royale to “Glasgae” an energetic rocker. Taylor was extremely powerful, “One Way Ticket”, and the band followed up with “Growing on Me,” “Open Fire” and the fairly contagiously good song (too soon?) “Solid Gold”. One of my favorites of the night is the great track from their debut record “Black Shuck,” which sounds even better now than when it was first cut. It is just such a powerful friendly punch in the face that likely could be heard halfway across the city.

The middle of the set provided the band a good chance to catch their breath ever so slightly, with the great melodies of “Heart Explodes” before bringing everybody back with the really fun song and fan favorite “Friday Night.”

Another highlight of the night was toward the end of the show with the salacious “Japanese Prisoner of Love” which has so much sound coming from 4 bandmates that it almost is unbelievable. If you have not heard Justin and the band compliment each other with the high falsettos that he has trademarked with the orchestral style guitar work of Dan, you may not know what I mean here, but they obviously will remind you of an almost more outrageous version of Queen in the early 70’s mixed with the Foo Fighters. The show ended differently from the rest of the tour with it being the final night of the show, we had no idea what was coming. They just kept playing, perhaps the reason they started early, they added their most well known songs and surprises. The undeniable riff of “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” had Boston raising the rafters, this was then followed by “Love on the Rocks with No Ice” with the Hawkins strutting through the adoring Royale floor in what must of been an ecstatic feeling being surrounded by the fanbase. You never know when you are going to see a show like the Darkness, so when they come back around, you must attend a show, it is like a metal circus, with no pretense and pure fun.