THE DARKNESS

Royale Theater
Boston MA
April 22, 2018

The British were coming to Boston once again, and the Royale couldn’t have been a better place for this to happen. As I pulled up to the front of the theater, the line stretched down the block. It was going to be a crowded venue tonite and I couldn’t have been happier.

First up on the bill for the evening was a band from Nashville, Diarrhea Planet. I wasn’t too sure what to expect from these guys, I didn’t do my homework on them before the show. I wish I had.These guys were great! Full of energy and terrific interaction with the crowd. Hopefully after this tour with The Darkness they will be coming back to the East Coast.

Photos: Diarrhea Planet

The crowd was pretty fired up by the time that Dan Hawkins (guitarist), Frankie Poullain (bass) and Rufus Tiger Taylor (drums) took the stage, and the roars grew as Justin Hawkins strolled out in a leopard pattern robe that matched his outfit for the evening.

As they started the evening’s festivities with “Open Fire” and “Love is Only a Feeling” before going into one of my favorite songs, “Southern Trains”, No it isn’t about trains down in Georgia, its about trains in England that never seem to be running on time. The video for this song is hilarious.

Usually after the first three songs, the photographers are kicked out of the photo pit and put their cameras away. Not this evening, after the end of the song, he told the photographers to stay for one more song and high fived or fist bumped many of us there in the pit.

It has been two years since I last covered The Darkness for NRR, and not much has changed in their show, hold on… let me clarify that. The set list has changed, the stage clothes have changed, the stage set up has changed, but what hasn’t changed is the energy they possess when on stage or the love of their audience and the interactions with the people, from high fives to stopping and talking a person out of their tangerine beret or even their shirt and headband and Justin putting them on for a song or two to trying to toss picks into the lights hanging from the ceiling hoping to win the stuffed animal.

Other songs on the setlist for the night were, “Black Shuck”, “One Way Ticket”, “Givin’ Up”, “All the Pretty Girls”, “Barbarian”, “Buccaneers of Hispaniola”, “Friday Night”, “Every Inch of You”, “Solid Gold”, “Stuck in a Rut”, “Get Your Hands Off My Woman”, and “Growing on Me”

The house lights did not go up after the band left the stage, so we knew an encore would be coming up soon. As the crowd was chanting, The Darkness came back on stage, and started playing around with their instruments finally going into “Japanese Prisoner of Love”, teasing the crowd with a county-ish start to “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” which became a crowd sing a long then finally closing the night out with “Love on the Rocks”

Two hours of epic British Metal, not an hour 15 or an hour 20, but 120 minutes of The Darkness, and they did it all with a smile and gratitude. Unfortunately, they are close to the end of their “Tour De Prance” supporting the latest album, “Pinewood Smile”, so if your in Texas the next couple of days…. Get out of your house, get in your car or on your horse and go see The Darkness. Two hours of Hi Octane, High Energy and Hard hitting Rock n Roll. You will not regret it.