Ah the headliners. Something of a poisoned chalice, that job, because as well as being the focal point of the day, there is a considerable burden on the main act to top all the others. Tricky business, because by the end of the weekend’s exertions, there comes a point when your blood-sugar levels are low, you’re broke as two sticks, muddy, cold and there’s no Bowie. If the headliners don’t make you shake your tired arse then your muscles just stiffen up or atrophy. But we would forget it all for a moment of real rock gratification.
The Darkness filled the prescription right enough. They couldn’t take the place of the Thin White Duke in our hearts, but they truly are an irresistible force of glam-rock delight. Music geniuses or not, the camera sweeping through the crowd showed that, at this stage, we were only capable of pointing open-mouthed and all we wanted were simple gestures of sensory pleasure. The jumpsuit is half the battle.
Hawkins, like a Jim Henson puppet prancing through your nightmares, was a very satisfying frenzy of spandex and falsetto rapture. The sonic equivalent of a feed of E-numbers, The Darkness belted out ‘Growing On Me’, ‘Love Is Only A Feeling’ and, of course, ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’. This is so Spinal Tap, with Hawkins asking in his jolly-hockey-sticks English accent “Who likes power ballads?” Oh we all did; give us loud, easy anthems and cheeky guitar solos, please. Nothing too fancy or complex.
Brother Dan sports a sparkly Thin Lizzy t-shirt, highly appropriate given that the one new song tonight, ‘Girl With The Hazel Eyes’, is an unashamed steal of Phil & co’s ‘Emerald’.
Fair play to the Lowestoft boys; some truly exhausted-looking wrecks were rocking like fuck by the wee hours. Just the boost we needed.