The Darkness + The Southern River Band @ Warwick Castle, Thursday 4th July 2024

11 July 2024

Warwick Castle has hosted a number of concerts over the years and, aided by a favourably warm evening, this was another fabulous night of music with the historic venue providing a wonderful backdrop. Having been on the road across mainland Europe during the past few weeks, The Darkness were in fine form and delighted the audience with a slightly shorter than usual set that nonetheless included all of the old favourites from Permission to Land, along with their more recent material.

Southern River Band – Warwick Castle – 4th July 2024

Warming up the crowd for the headliners were rabble rousing Aussies The Southern River Band, who immediately made an impression by taking the stage dressed in medieval costume. Their infectious 70’s – inspired retro rock and roll went down a storm and they are clearly a band who, provided they are able to come back over here on a regular basis, will soon be rewarded with a strong fan base in the UK. Taking their blueprint from the likes of early Quo, Cheap Trick and the Sweet, SRB are here for a good time not a long time. Current single, the foot stomping anthem ‘Stan Qualen’, raised the bar even higher and this is a band we can’t wait to see again.

The Darkness – Warwick Castle – 4th July 2024

The Darkness are a band that never seem to have an “off” night; they simply have good nights and great nights. Tonight was definitely one of the latter, with the irrepressible Justin Hawkins engaging in some fine banter with the masses, and the whole band on fire as they romped through 90 minutes of Darkness classics. From the opening anthems of ‘Growing on Me’ and ‘Get Your Hands Off My Woman’, the limber and nimble front man had the crowd hanging on his every word and move. Aided by a superb sound system and the castle grounds, ‘Barbarian’ proved that the Darkness are far more than just their debut album and are still capable of coming up with a terrific hard rock tune.

Feeding off the energy of the crowd, ‘Friday Night’ was the cue for another mass sing and dance-a-long and all too soon they reached the end of the main set with the call and response of ‘Love is Only a Feeling’. For the encore it was time to move forwards a few months and make us all look forward to ‘Christmastime’, surely one of the most beloved festive numbers since the 70’s. 2019’s Easter Is Cancelled was a superb album and the powerful ‘Rock and Roll Deserves To Die’ represents that perfect blend of early Queen given an added Darkness twist. They closed with a triumphant ‘I Believe In a Thing Called Love’ and ‘Love on the Rocks With No Ice’, the latter allowing Justin the chance to go walk-a-bout through the audience as the band moved into a blast of ‘Heartbreaker’ at the songs conclusion. With plenty of fireworks both on and off stage, this was a night of high-octane entertainment. Flawless and explosive, The Darkness never fail to impress.