Midway through the deliriously profane Get Your Hands Off My Woman, Justin Hawkins demands that the crowd claps along. Before you know it, the frontman is standing on his head and joining in by slapping together the heels of his pointy white shoes. There has already been bountiful swearing and ripping guitars, and now there is showing off. All is right in the Darkness’s world.
Hawkins has never misplaced his desire to peacock in front of an audience, and yet his acrobatic high spirits do appear to be supercharged at an interesting moment in the group’s long career. Fresh from becoming a side quest for Taylor Swift’s legion of fans due to her admiration of their 2003 hit I Believe in a Thing Called Love – a song dispatched here with undimmed bombast – the Darkness have a new record out shortly that, if Hawkins’ pumping of the faithful for pre-orders is to be believed, might return them to the top of the charts.
But they are a different band to the one that achieved the same feat with their blockbuster debut Permission to Land more than two decades ago and perhaps all the better for it. With budgets slashed and venues smaller there is less reliance on, or desire to reach for, stadium rock spectacle tonight. In its place is something honest and homespun as Hawkins banters and saunters while his brother Dan, dressed like Johnny Ramone but holding things down with the beautiful reliability of Malcolm Young, riffs hard on Mortal Dread and Barbarian.
In opposition, though, is a mix that’s coruscatingly loud and absolutely unforgiving. It ruins Rock and Roll Party Cowboy and The Battle for Gadget Land, a couple of intriguingly spiky new songs, and is equally dismissive of Growing on Me, a banker from the old days that’s rescued at the last when Hawkins, spotlit in a neckerchief and retro-futuristic jacket like Doc Holliday fronting Sparks, peels off a head-spinning solo. Really, that’s the magic of the Darkness in miniature – when the wheels seem sure to come off, they find a way to rattle on.
• The Darkness are on tour in the UK until 29 March
