Day 35 (November 13), Last Night of the Trip: London UK

I am pseudo live-blogging my last night of the trip. Comments will however appear first to last, because, well, pseudo...

17:42: At this time tomorrow (Podunk time), I should be in an Podunk bar having a pint, rather than a London pub. It is a move down.

18:42: I'm eating octopus. With capers!
I also suspect my waiter hails from Barcelona; it is taking all my strength not to channel my inner Basil Fawlty.

19:24: I just ordered olorosso sherry. I'm all in now!

19:52: I still have not clued in that they do not identify Underground lines by colour (despite the colour-coded map) which sends me, yet again, scurrying for my tourist guide as I walk into the tube station (Tottenham Court) and realise I do not really know which one is the dark blue line.

20:09: I made it to the Electric Ballroom in Camden. Woo hoo!

20:29: I just caught the end of Lost Alone's opening gig. They are a trio, two guitars and drums: not punk or metal, but loud rock. They were not bad. If they ever make it, I can say I saw them in London.

20:42: Yeah, it just hit me (again): I'm at a (large) club gig in London. This is fuucken cool.

21:02: The Darkness are on stage!

21:08: I'm sorry. 'The Fucking Darkness' are on stage, according to the lead singer, who can still hit the high notes.

21:24: The tight spandex body suit. It's gotta be the tight spandex body suit that's making him hit the high notes.

21:38. Ok, there's an over-voice now introducing the album 'Permission to Land'. Hee hee. (1,4K sales in the UK is impressive though.). And introducing the band.

21:40. It's a red spandex suit now.

21:43: Sorry. Pink. It's a pink spandex suit.

22:24. Lead singer just called the guitar roadie (roadey?) back on stage to get a kiss on the mouth, just like they practised during sound check.

22:35: I love how saying someone's a cunt over here is like saying's someone's a dick back home.

23:19. A Whopper's 4 pounds?!?

23:34+. Ok. I may have figured it out, now that I have seen them live. I bought The Darkness's first CD 'Permission to Land' when it came out ten years ago. It was a fun disc, with some classic sounding harder rock tunes tinged with pop, but I could not quite work out whether it was meant to be a parody of hair bands, an homage or a straight disc. Seeing them live, performing Permission to Land on its tenth anniversary and other songs (evidently, they either have had hits in the UK in the subsequent decade or have a decent enough following that know their songs, as the crowd recognised and sang along to most of their numbers), it occurred to me that while it is nearly impossible to take their songs seriously (lyrics like 'I want to kiss you every moment of every day' kind of ensure that), The Darkness is not parodying metal rock, it recognises and incorporates by design the theatrical elements of hair rock (such as falsetto high notes, spandex body suits open to the navel and, well, hair) as part of their act. While it makes them sometimes appear like a West End musical version of a band, it is well in line with a particular UK comprehension of rock as theatre, going back to Queen and Bowie.

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