The Darkness, Toto, Chelsea Live, London June 13, 2019
Written by TotalRocker on June 22, 2019
The weather could certainly be better this evening and the courtyard of the Royal Chelsea Hospital is a sea of seated rain ponchos and umbrellas before the Darkness hit the stage and Justin Hawkins refuses to admit defeat. Calling everyone from the hospitality areas at the back to the front of the stage for dancing, it’s not long before he creates the ambiance of a rock gig in otherwise what could have been a pretty staid environment. Security battle vainly to get everyone back to their seats, but it’s too late the spirit of rock n roll is out of the bag. Polite and damp garden party has become an altogether ruder affair. For the cognoscenti the choice of first song ‘Givin’ Up’ about injecting heroin is a snook cocked at any propriety, sticks removed from ass, it’s time to have much, much more fun.
Apparently all the chaos means the Darkness have to cut a song from the set, but if this was an attempt to punish them for what the venue was calling ‘crowd misdirection by the musicians’ it did not work. They cannot do a full set, but they find time for eight tracks and it’s packed full of their biggest hits. Full of guitar tricks of playing under his arm round on his back and climbing the speaker and easily hitting all the high falsetto notes Justin is always a force of nature. The organizers might just as well like Canute shout at the tide not to come in as try to prevent Justin causing a riot everywhere he goes. Fans manage rugby style runs in large arcs to avoid security tackles to get to the front of the stage for picks and set lists and huge groups of people at the sides of the stage boogie their socks off despite the directives to return to seats which remain unheeded until the band go offstage. What a start! and over too soon for me.
I have to admit I’m here for the Darkness and I am much less familiar with Toto’s material as they are on the softer side for my taste. It’s hard not to get caught up with the enthusiasm of the crowd, nevertheless and slowly but surely they grind security down as they dance closer and closer to the stage.
Big hits like ‘Love Isn’t Always on Time’ and ‘Roseanna’ get the audience going and there is enough shredding and good musicianship to keep me engaged as a first timer. Multicultural elements like African influenced additional percussion and an additional keyboard player who had played with Prince add funk and R&B elements and saxophone adds the jazz element to contribute to that fusion and diverse sound for which Toto are known. Steve Porcaro’s introduction to his writing of ‘Why Why’ reminds us of their monster hit songwriting. There is even a bit of country blues with a mouth organ. There are parts that sound like grand music for films which is also part of a crossover composer’s roster these days and longish jams for fans of prog and serious blues add gravitas. For a temporary stage the sound is flawless.
‘Africa’ is, of course, part of the finale and the front becomes a fully fledged Caribbean style festival with even members of the security team, thawed by the atmosphere, began singing along. It may not have been right up my street, but Toto delivered for their fans and provided a long and well executed show which was apparently exactly what they wanted. Gushing comments from the crowd as I left and the spontaneous comments to strangers about the high quality of the show demonstrates that Toto certainly kept their faithful smiling tonight.
Dawn Osborne
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Steven McDonald On June 23, 2019 at 10:38 am
Oh it was so much fun. Security coming over to me to take my very small brolly down with rain dripping off the end of their nose. Ha….😎🎶❤️