It’s hard to believe that almost 20 years have passed since the band burst into our consciousness to smash away the post-grunge depression with their self-deprecating sense of humour and killer songs.
While many questioned their true rock’n’roll credentials a quick scratch below the surface confirmed a seriously talented band with a true superstar in the form of catsuit-clad frontman Justin Hawkins.
But with the world seemingly at their feet following a Brit Award-storming 2004 Hawkins imploded into a spiral of drink and drug abuse as the public became quickly disillusioned with what could kindly be described as media over-exposure.
Their golden moment was seemingly lost and mainstream music disappeared into a sea of reality TV show schmaltz and bland introspective pop pap.
Now in 2017 – with a rip-snorting new album Pinewood Smile under their belts – The Darkness are back in the nick of time to resurrect the nation’s ailing musical spirits and hopefully smash a Flying V into the charts.
Incredibly at the grand old age of 42 Hawkins can still squeeze into the lycra – taking to the stage in a revealing green number that may well have been once retrieved from a Freddie Mercury house clearance.
It’s totally ridiculous and completely in keeping with an over-the-top show that the band approach as if they were playing Wembley Stadium rather than the more intimate confines of Leeds’ 2,300 capacity 02 Academy.
Kicking off with Open Fire from 2015’s Last of Our Kind is a bold move before Love Is Only A Feeling from debut smash Permission To Land paves the way for first newbie Southern Trains.
Hawkins’s younger brother Dan gives a powerhouse power chord performance on rhythm guitar while Yorkshire-born bassist Frankie Poullain – resplendent in a red velvet suit and massive afro – is the epitome of side-splitting cool as he lays down the backing beat to allow the falsetto-screeching frontman to preen and pose his way through a blistering 90-minute set.
At one stage Hawkins confesses to the enthralled audience that political correctness following recent sex harassment scandals is proving “bad for business in the c*** rock industry” and cheekily reveals that men are “having terrible trouble down south” as a result and that songs must now be about “acts of love between mutually consenting equal adults”.
Next song: Get Your Hands Off My Woman (Mother******).
The four-new tracks from new album are best-saved by the vulgar Solid Gold before Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bell’s End) confirms its status as perhaps the greatest festive song this side of Slade before the venue erupts as the band climax with I Believe In A Thing Called Love.