"This is Acid Reflux, Not Cancer..." THE DARKNESS Land in Boston, April 3, 2004Apr 04 '04 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line Forget that whole "garage rock revival" thing...The Darkness will be what saves rock and roll from itself. On December 13, 1980, four young lads from Ireland took the stage at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston as the opening act for a band named Barooga. That night, those four young lads would be called back for two encores as the opening act, beginning a very special relationship with the city of Boston. That band's name was U2. Saturday night, April 3, 2004, four lads from England took the stage at the Avalon Ballroom club in Boston and gave an absolutely rousing performance that made the audience sing along heartily, clap their hands on cue, and raise their arms in triumph and exultation with the big rock and roll finish of each song. This band was The Darkness. Time will eventually tell whether The Darkness will go on to become as big as U2, but it sure felt like the band was well on their way Saturday night. The band's motto of "if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing" was in full evidence before they even took the stage. At the conclusion of the Wildhearts opening set, a huge curtain came down to obscure the crowd of 2500's view of the stage. When the house lights went down, the curtain was bathed in a series of colored lights, before a huge spotlight focused on the center of the stage, and the outline of lead singer/guitarist Justin Hawkins was the only thing visible. As the curtain was ripped away, and the band ripped into a three minute intro jam, Avalon went right into frenzy mode. Equal parts David Lee Roth, Freddie Mercury and Eddie Van Halen (as evidenced by his tease of Eruption at one point in the set), Hawkins is the main reason the band has gone gold here in the US with their debut album Permission to Land, after going multiplatinum abroad. He has an undeniable charisma and charm while on stage, and he had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand from the moment that curtain went down, be it for his over the top falsetto crooning on songs like Get Your Hands Off of My Woman or Friday Night, his four costume changes, or his encore victory lap/guitar solo on the shoulders of a roadie throughout the venue. The band hit early with Black Shuck and Growing on Me, songs that demanded audience participation and the audience was all too happy to oblige. For all of the love the crowd showed Hawkins, Hawkins seemed to repay it tenfold. He wished his mom a happy birthday, and before performing the power ballad Love is Only a Feeling, Hawkins held up a lighter and asked the crowd if he knew what the appearance of it meant. The crowd was seemingly dumbfounded for some reason, so Hawkins playfully let them know: "it's power ballad time, YEAH!" Before Stuck in a Rut, Hawkins made light of the show cancellations the band had to make earlier in the week, due to a problem with his voice. "They said maybe the Darkness doesn't have the balls to tour the States. But I told anyone who would listen, the doctors, nurses, orderlies, this is acid reflux, not cancer, I shall beat it!" The band's sound mix was a bit muddled at times, most likely due to the large (if not overly AC/DC like large) stack of Marshall amps, but for the most part, the band sounded tight. Bassist Frankie Poullain (looking like he came straight out of Spinal Tap auditions) helped out Hawkins where he could in encouraging crowd participation, while Justin's guitarist brother, Dan, switched seamlessly from rhythm to lead guitar, pushing out a few nice solos of his own. Drummer Ed Graham (looking like a lost Ramone) was a powerhouse all night, although not much is asked of him as a player. By the time the band played their hit single I Believe in a Thing Called Love, they had already been on stage an hour and it felt like it had been an all too short 15 minutes. Avalon hit one high when Justin teased the song (which led to the crowd singing one chorus in full falsetto as best they could), and then it hit a whole other high when the song was started for real a couple of minutes later. The band left the stage, but came back to encore with Giving Up and a head banging Love on the Rocks With No Ice, which featured the aforementioned victory lap around the venue. Some people consider The Darkness to be a joke, a taste of irony in a rock world where having a sense of humor has been a death knell for the past decade. Somewhere along the line, we lost the "fun" part of rock and roll, a part that was raped and pillaged up until Nirvana broke. But if Saturday night's show proved anything, it's that the Darkness are going to restore the fun part of rock and roll, or die trying. The setlist included almost all of Permission to Land, as well as a couple of b-sides or non album tracks, and quite a bit of in between song banter and riffing. The band is on tour through the middle of this month, but most if not all of the shows are already sold out (many were moved to bigger venues to satisfy insane ticket demand). The band's opening act, The Wildhearts, mentioned a June tour of the same lineup, but nothing has been officially announced yet. Either way, I strongly recommend catching The Darkness if at all possible when they come to your town. 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