The Darkness / Massive Wagons

Margate Winter Gardens 19/11/2021

Live review by; Myk

 

Massive Wagons had just 30 minutes to impress a large audience.  They started with a bang with ‘In It Together’ and then proceeded to smash through song after song with hardly a pause for breath between them including ‘Banging In Your Stereo’ segueing into a bit of a medley including ‘I Fought the Law’ giving the crowd an opportunity to sing along. 

‘Professional Creep’ including the line ‘And ya look like Meryl Streep, You’re a professional male creep’ always makes me chuckle, then they finished up with the fantastic ‘Back To The Stack’ and it was over far too quickly. Unfortunately the sound was a bit weak but the reason for this became obvious when the Darkness started to play, they hadn’t been afforded the full system. Shame on The Darkness they should remember they were once a support band.

 

Having seen The Darkness a few times before I had some idea what I was in store for, the big entrance followed by high octane rock ‘n’ roll. And boy did they deliver, the new material sounded awesome and was incredibly heavy with Rufus ‘Tiger’ Taylor pounding away on the drums like his life depended on it. 

 

Frankie Poullain on bass prowled the stage looking like a lounge lizard harking back to the seventies, but he still managed to make it look cool even when he was playing cowbell. The whole performance is completely overblown but glorious, the new album title track ‘Motorheart’ is an absolute belter and there is a healthy sampling of their first album including ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’. Black Shuck, Love is Only A Feeling’, ‘Get Your Hands of My Woman’ all driven by the impressive Dan Hawkins on guitar. 

The back catalogue from other albums was also well sampled reminding all what great song writers they are, ‘One Way Ticket to Hell and Back’, ‘Barbarian’, ‘Open Fire’, ‘Solid Gold’ are included amongst others. 

 

The new album as you would expect is also well represented including ‘The Power And The Glory Of Love’, with Justin Hawkins orchestrating proceedings from the front with his typical outlandish catsuits, mad as a box of frogs banter, obligatory headstand on the drum riser, his famous falsetto vocals and squealing guitar solos. There may be technically better frontmen but there are surely none that are as entertaining. What a fantastic performance, a joy to watch from start to finish.

 

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