Went to see The Darkness at Showbox Seattle last night. While they aren’t on the level of Flight to Mars or Fishbone musician-wise, they still definitely put on a good show.

We skipped the opener, Diarrhea Planet – both of us watched a KEXP clip of theirs on YT earlier in the day and concluded they weren’t for us (if the band name wasn’t enough deterrent to begin with?).

So I’ve liked The Darkness for some time, but mostly the first two albums, hadn’t heard the latter 3 until just recently (right after I got tix) so wasn’t as familiar with that material, but either way, they delivered it well.

Among other silliness seen were a constant rotation of hats thrown up from the audience; the audience banter with Justin Hawkins (singer and band leader), a bit of actual crowd surfing by same, and (sadly) some actual mosh pit action by the end….

Justin Hawkins may be many things, but it’s clear he’s definitely influenced by glam rockers such as Bowie, Marc Bolan and likely Mick Jagger, possibly even The Sweet (which may be closest to the pop rock of The Darkness, sound-wise) – witness the full-body ‘leopard skin’ slinky outfit he had on (the rest of the band looked fairly normal, barring the bassist resembling a rougher fro-headed Borat).

But that crazy falsetto he has is still in good shape, even at 43 years old (he opened the show last night by insisting they were all 28, but later Jeff Carter (math wizard) correctly noted there’s no way they were that young, and it turns out that’s how old they were when they started.

Speaking of when they started, their biggest hit was the last song of the night, which some Seattle nerd captured on their phone and posted on YT (of course) – enjoy! Their albums have also largely made it onto YT also, and the second video below is a full 2015 concert from Chicago, many of the same songs….enjoy! candybowl

“the world needs Iron Maiden” – and yes, we DO.

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we had (literally) nosebleed seats that summer when the reunion tour hit Key Arena (as the YT notes show, 7 years *after* this VH1 show), but it was definitely worth it to see one of my all-time fave bands…

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amazing tribute from earlier this summer following KE’s passing…..

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Borrowed the Screaming for Vengeance 30th anniversary CD from the library, and there was a surprise in there – a second disc, a DVD with JP’s set from the 1983 US Festival in California.

For those of you not older than dirt, the US Festival was put on by Steve Wozinak as a ‘feel good’ massive music festival for two years in a row. It lost tons of money both years, the second year had a ‘metal day’ – added because may have been the only moneymaker, IMHO (and from reading articles about it back then) – and JP was one of the main acts, so watching this DVD was definitely a trip down memory lane (I was a sophmore in high school at the time).

So they start their set and the two guitarists come out – JP’s constantly changing drummer and bassist had to have been the source of the Spinal Tap joke about the exploding drummer – Glenn Tipton is shown chugging a Heineken just before he comes out, and KK Downing is wearing what look like female biker go-go boots – of course.

Then, as the strains of ‘The Hellion’ finish and they launch into Electric Eye, Rob Halford is heard, but not seen, quite yet. Then he marches onstage to massive cheers, and he’s wearing his ‘Goth King of the Village People’ outfit – mirrored aviators, leather and spikes ‘everything’, bullwhip, massive skull belt buckle and boots of his own. Next to these two, Glenn Tipton looks pretty tame, with only red stretch pants, open shirt and classic 80s “feathered rocker hair”.

And away they rock. Pretty good set, if what seems to be largely a set of hits only, but still pretty good, they play tight, and try to rile up the crowd, although it’s obvious that crowd is WAY too big to communicate with very much, and the stage is set back considerably from the crowd with massive security and camerapeople anyway.

Then of course near the end of the set, Rob Halford bursts through the center Marshall stack and ‘rides’ their Harley slowly onstage, revving the crap out of it. I never saw JP back in the day, only just a few years ago at White River locally, and I don’t remember them bothering with the Harley – at our show Rob Halford was too busy with costume changes anyway. 🙂 So then RH lays out on the front chopper wheel, and away they go with Hell Bent for Leather 🙂

It’s probably the perspective of time (or just getting old) but despite obvious musical talent, this is still pretty cheesy. Although the actual music video (embedded below) for ‘Breaking the Law’ is the epitome of cheese, especially when Beavis and Butthead were making fun of it (couldn’t find that sadly). But in fairness to the band, something i just read seemed to indicate they made the video somewhat tongue in cheek anyway 🙂

…to the Metal Gods!

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if Casualties of Jazz started playing Meters songs, this is what it would sound like…click through to hear on SoundCloud..

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio

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Another music tragedy – will they just please STOP?! RIP, Mr. Cornell…

also a much older clip from happier times here….

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finally got back to Flight to Mars last night after an absence of 3 years – true, ROCK. This was the 15th year show – ‘wow’ doesn’t begin to describe it, definitely one of the best rock shows I’ve seen in a long time – looking at the most recent years (that i’ve missed) it looks like they’ve been on a Thin Lizzy kick of late too – there were several played last night – great stuff!

someone video’d the opening F2M song:

Looks like Mr McCready broke out a little Eruption in the Sat show:

Previous years’ clips can be seen from this search too.

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even though in my usual way, I found out about it 4 years AFTER(!) it happened…but still cool…

On the scene: ‘School of Rock’ cast reunites for 10th anniversary screening

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