Live Review: The Darkness @ UNSW Roundhouse, Sydney – 6 May 2012

Review and Photos by Robert Pugsley
The Darkness are back and dare I say bigger and better than ever. They are pure performers and gave it all at their latest Sydney gig at UNSW Roundhouse.

Bursting on to the stage with ‘Black Shuck’, the crowd went nuts and The Darkness reciprocated with rock god swagger, style and boundless energy for the rest of the gig.

Justin Hawkins is a hell of a personality. Constantly moving, he rocked and jumped around the stage with the energy of a 4 year old drinking straight from the cordial bottle, it’s physically exhausting just watching him. Justin really is one of those rare sexual beasts, who, with his flaming groin tattoo, was rained upon by punters throwing underwear whilst receiving the adulation of topless female worshippers.

With the adulation and screams of the crowd Justin stopped and asked the audience “Are you jealous of me right now?” God yeah.

It’s easy to forget that under all that showmanship that The Darkness are flawless musicians, their set was tight and they played like they were of one mind. I guess one way to stay in tune is to do as they do and change guitars every single song, seriously, with guitar techs working on the side of the stage like furious iPad factory workers, they rotated their guitars for each song.

All the classics were played, ‘Love is Only a Feeling’ ‘Get Your Hands Off My Woman’ ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’ and a sprinkling of their new stuff like ‘Concrete’ ‘She’s Just a Girl Eddie’ and ‘Every Inch of You’.

The encore was a show in itself. They played a 15 minute ‘Love on the Rocks with No Ice” which had Justin, in his third outfit change, parade through the crowd on the shoulders of some bouncers, all the while rockin’ hard on his guitar, it was the best encore I have ever seen, pure hard core entertainment.

If you missed this show, well, you shall now die unhappy knowing you missed an incredible experience.