MRG Live Presents: The Darkness

"Overblown with pomp and camp, English rock band the Darkness crashed the mainstream in the early 2000s, resurrecting classic rock & roll bombast and excess with their breakthrough debut, 2003's Permission to Land. Scoring armfuls of awards and chart records, the outfit imploded just as abruptly as they seemed to arrive, breaking up after lackluster sophomore release One Way Ticket to Hell...And Back. New bands were formed, rehab was completed, and old wounds were healed in the years that followed. The band reunited in 2011 and issued their comeback, Hot Cakes, in 2012. Subsequent 2010s efforts expanded their reliably raucous and nostalgia-indebted hard rock catalog, capturing fans with their theatrical live shows and devotion to excess and tongue-in-cheek humor. In 2019, they released their sixth full-length, Easter Is Cancelled. Centered around irrepressible frontman Justin Hawkins (vocals/guitars/keyboards), who, along with his guitar-playing baby brother Dan, bassist Frankie Poullain, and drummer Ed Graham, single-handedly resurrected the rather unfashionable sounds and attitudes of late-'70s hard rock for an unsuspecting generation. Following the demise of an earlier, conspicuously synth pop-based outfit named Empire, the Hawkins brothers sowed the seeds of what would become the Darkness at an impromptu karaoke session on New Year's Eve 1999. Justin's rapturous rendition of Queen's ""Bohemian Rhapsody"" showed them the way, and the suitably dramatic name ""the Darkness"" was chosen shortly after the arrival of Poullain and Graham. With outrageous stage antics that included gaudy leotards stolen from Steven Tyler's wardrobe, leaps and splits borrowed from David Lee Roth, and an ear-piercing falsetto copped from Freddie Mercury himself, the multi-talented elder Hawkins led the quartet as the group spent the next two years slogging it out on London's pub circuit.