CHRISTMAS IS NOT CANCELLED
THE DARKNESS FAMOUSLY SCRAPPED EASTER BUT, AS JUSTIN HAWKINS TELLS NOTHING IS GETTING IN THE WAY THIS TIME ROUND...
The Darkness’s most recent album turned out to have a disturbingly prescient title. Released in October 2019, before the world had even heard of coronavirus, it was called Easter Is Cancelled. And so it came to pass. But, be assured, the band are most certainly not stopping Christmas, come what may.
And just as well, too. After all, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without The Darkness. Ever since the release of Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) in 2003, they’ve become a permanent festive fixture. But this year Lowestoft’s most famous rock’n’rollers are pulling out all the stops with A White Christmas, a special streamed live show tonight from the indigO2.
Frontman Justin Hawkins is as excited as a child on Christmas morning. ‘It’s really awesome to see everybody for the first time since March,’ he enthuses. ‘When we’re rehearsing, the first run-through is always horrible in every way, but it’s been sounding good, actually.’
The original plan was to have some fans in the venue for a socially distanced show, but the new tiers have put paid to that.
‘It’s gutting that we’re not allowed to have an audience in at all,’ admits Justin ruefully. ‘It would have been nice to have something to bounce off and some kind of reaction in the room to inspire us. I could hold the mic out to a cameraman for him to sing though, I suppose. Normally, when I ask people to cheer, I say, “I can’t hear you!” but now it’ll be “No, I genuinely can’t hear you!”’
The showman in him admits he does enjoy it when things go awry, though: ‘That’s the kind of the thing that I love in The Darkness shows, an awkward silence.
‘When you don’t get what you’re expecting, it forces you to think outside your usual remit and find something else. This is probably the biggest challenge of our career, in the sense there’s no stimulus to help us out of those difficult situations.
‘Even if it’s a complete s***show we’ll never forget it!’ he laughs.
So, about that album title. Does a career in fortune-telling await?
‘We call it soothsaying in East Anglia but usually that’s guessing the weight of a pig, or guessing the gender of newborn livestock. Now it seems we’ve moved into the realm of predicting world events!’ he says,
wryly. ‘Actually, I do have one skill! You’ll like this.
‘I’ve got an encyclopaedic knowledge of music. It doesn’t matter what name you give me. I can sing you a song that uses it. Got one? Raphael? OK, let me think...’ He goes silent for a while. ‘Got it! Happy Birthday To You... See? You can have that one for free. It’ll go down a treat at the Christmas dinner table.’
As well as live-streams, 2020 has introduced face masks into our daily lives, and Justin is loving it. ‘You can pull faces at people, or have a vacant expression, and nobody knows. People just look and think, “Oh my, look at those searing dark eyes, I wonder what’s going on behind them?”
‘In reality, sometimes when I concentrate, I develop this kind of underbite like a Boston Terrier, but now with masks I can focus hard and not worry about what my face is doing.’
Justin promises that the show will have all the flamboyance, glittery catsuits and sparkles
‘Come along! There’s plenty of room... and an indoor toilet’
we’ve come to expect. And while he’ll miss having the audience in the room with him, there are, he says, some perks to a live stream.
‘Come and watch, you know, there’s plenty of room. You have full unlimited access to your own toilet facilities, no queuing for ages as they’re only letting one person in at a time because of social distancing,’ he laughs.
‘You could even take the laptop with you, there are no laws against it and it won’t hinder your enjoyment, providing you have adequate wifi in the latrine.
‘We know that if you’ve got a laptop and you’ve got wifi, you probably also have a toilet that’s indoors. Got to be grateful for that. So, blessed.’
The Darkness, Christmas, and an indoor toilet. What more could you ask for?
A White Christmas with The Darkness, tonight, axs.com, 8pm