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Review: The Darkness/Massive Wagons, O2 Academy
There really aren’t enough UK bands whose chief influences are Slade and Quo, so Lancaster’s surprise chart-botherers Massive Wagons have the field pretty much to themselves. They’ve done enough of these support slots to know exactly how to win over an audience: hit ’em hard and hit ’em fast, pack as much rockin’ into that 30-minute slot as is humanly possible and don’t even think about pausing for breath.
It’s all a bit quiet at first and they open with their worst song, the mega-cheesy Fee Fi Fo Fum. But, hey, at least that’s out of the way, leaving hyperactive, foghorn-voiced Baz Mills and chums to win over the packed audience with a relentless barrage of unpretentious, foot-stomping, old-school hard rock.
is needed now More than ever
They’re a much better match for the headliners than the originally booked British Lion, playfully incorporating snippets of I Fought the Law and Surrender into the absurdly catchy Bangin’ in Your Stereo and concluding the set with that great Rick Parfitt tribute Back to the Stack – complete with classic Quo-style formation headbanging.
They were never going to eclipse The Darkness, but do succeed in giving them a serious run for their money, winning a huge round of applause.
If they’d followed the script, The Darkness would have joined all those other Mercury Music Prize nominees (and winners) in obscurity after the initial mainstream media hoopla died down nearly two decades ago. But here they are still packing the same venue they sold out on the 2003 Permission To Land tour. They’re still playing many of the same songs too, but have written enough good new ones to dodge being pigeonholed as a nostalgia act. There’s no secret formula to retaining such a loyal fanbase: they’re just a great live band who appreciate the difference between the heinous crime of laughing at rock and having a sense of fun about what they do.
The Darkness announce their arrival with Abba’s, er, Arrival, Justin rockin’ the Comedy Julian Cope look (peaked cap and leather cut-off – or vegan alternative) as they launch into Welcome Tae Glasgae, which is as good-natured as it is unlikely to be adopted as the official anthem of the Scottish city. The title track of, and only track played from, under-appreciated cocaine-fuelled Difficult Second Album One Way Ticket follows before they take the first of many dips back into Permission To Land with Growing On Me.
Justin’s falsetto remains powerful enough to disturb the canine residents of Bristol Dogs’ Home across town, while his straight man rhythm guitarist brother Dan’s pointed response to those many preposterous costume changes is to wear the same Thin Lizzy T-shirt he’s been sporting for the last 20 years (does he have more than one, or is it just very smelly indeed?). Truly, he is the Ernie Wise to his sibling’s Eric Morecambe. Bassist Frankie Poullain, meanwhile, continues to look like an amused bystander, while drummer Rufus Tiger Taylor ably keeps alive the family trade (Taylor and Son, by appointment to Queen, obviously).
Justin whips off his shirt and dedicates Givin’ Up to “anyone who’s ever unveiled a Covidian body in front of an audience to an underwhelming response”, before squeezing into a spandex catsuit for Black Shuck. The latter’s tremendous riffery is matched only by that of the splendid Solid Gold, which is interrupted by some kind of audience mishap down the front, requiring the intervention of security. Having ascertained that no one’s been hurt, Justin announces that “The Darkness will continue to rock with aplomb”. Which is precisely what they do.
Barbarian, that idiosyncratic answer to Viking metal (with a nod in the direction of Immigrant Song), is about as heavy as they get, while the end of the set is signalled by the crowd-pleasing double-whammy of Get Your Hands Off My Woman and I Believe in a Thing Called Love (preceded by a plea to put away mobile phones: “You’re recording it for those who aren’t here? Fuck those people”), which gets the entire audience bouncing up and down.
There’s a long wait for the encore, which can only mean that either someone has a very full bladder or an outbreak of panto season silliness is imminent. Sure enough, The Darkness reappear in a variety of absurd costumes, Dan making the least effort while, unexpectedly, Rufus is the clear winner by dressing as – I shit you not – a Christmas tree with a star on top. This presents certain practical challenges. He falls over on his drum riser and can’t even see out of it to pick up his musical cues, so has no idea when to start the inevitable Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) – especially as Justin prefaces this by breaking out a festive cheese platter comprising a medley of Mistletoe and Wine and Last Christmas. In a rare serious moment earlier, he’d reminded us that the Omicron variant could mean that we’ll look back at the last few months as a brief oasis of rocking before the shutters came down again. At least The Darkness have done their bit by supplying some indelible – and occasionally alarming – memories.
All pix by Mike Evans
Read more: Metal & Prog Picks: December 2021
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