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The Darkness Preview New Songs

added 24 November 2004 at 11.55

At The Darkness’ ‘intimate’ Brixton Academy warm up date for their Christmas Arena tour last night (November 23) the band previewed four new songs along with a host of costume changes in front of an ecstatic crowd.

The gig was billed as a low-key warm up show for the band’s 14-date winter arena tour, which kicks off tonight in Nottingham but proved to be anything but.  In front of a sold out crowd who had managed to get tickets in the minutes before the show sold out, frontman Justin Hawkins led the band through an amazingly received hour and a half set.

Amongst previous Darkness singles ‘Get You Hands Off My Woman’, 'Growing On Me’ and ‘Love Is Only A Feeling’ the band also played four new songs. Xfm can reveal that these included the tracks ‘Dinner Lady Arms’, ‘Grief Hammer’ and a new power ballad called 'Seemed Like A Good Idea', during which a keyboard was wheeled on stage for Justin to play while his brother Dan accompanied him on chiming acoustic-sounding guitars.

There was more multi-instrumentalism when the band played the fourth new track ‘English Country Garden’ which saw Hawkins swapping his guitar for an 80’s-style shoulder slung ‘key-tar’(or is it ‘gui-board’?) synthesiser (something like this one)

During the track ‘Friday Night’ a momentarily confused Hawkins thought he was being bottled, but it turned out to be the crowd affectionately chucking table-tennis balls onto the stage as he sung the lyric “I got ping pong on Wednesday, needlework on Thursday…”

Hawkins also made reference to the fact the band had just taken a break and maybe put on a little weight, asking the crowd, “Hands up who’s got a beer gut?  Two months off? Heh. It’s not like I didn’t want to work out for you guys… I just couldn’t be f**king arsed. "

The band did two encores, ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’ and the traditional set closer ‘Love On The Rocks With No Ice’ during which Hawkins was carried aloft on a roadies’ shoulders around the audience. They then returned for a final encore of their Christmas single ‘Don’t Let The Bells End’ (which Hawkins introduced after playing a snatch of the intro to the Band Aid 20 track on the piano) with a set of flashbombs shooting out multicoloured glitter into the crowd at the song’s finale.

N.B. For those of you interested in such things Justin sported three different catsuits throughout the evening. They were 1). Black leather patchwork, zipped down to pubus maximus, with sprinkles of glitter on lapels and in streaks down chest. 2) Silver lamé two piece, skin tight trousers and cropped jacket (plus matching sun visor). 3) Iridescent
holographic latex one piece (for encore) in which he looked like “a big rock and roll rainbow trout” according to one source.

The Darkness kick off their Christmas stadium tour tonight. The full tour dates are:

• Nottingham Arena (November 24)
• Glasgow SECC Arena (26 & 27)
• Newcastle Metro Radio Arena (29 & 30)
• Manchester MEN Arena (December 1 & 2)
• Sheffield Hallam FM Arena (4)
• Cardiff International Arena (6)
• Birmingham NEC Arena (7, 8)
• London Wembley Arena (10, 11 & 12) 

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Matt Everitt

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