THE DARKNESS bring their ‘Dreams on Toast’ Tour Wembley’s OVO Arena.
words + photography by Nicola O'ConnellWith Permission to Land on their penultimate night of the ‘Dreams On Toast’ UK tour, The Darkness rock the OVO Arena in Wembley with support from Northern Irish rock band Ash. An evening of fun, good music and yet another show in which Justin Hawkins refuses to keep his top on. The English rock band of Lowestoft started their tour in Ipswich, hitting cities Swansea, Glasgow, Liverpool, Oxford , Wolverhampton and many more along the way.
Joining The Darkness on their tour across the UK was band Ash who have spent an impressive 30 years in the industry. The guys started their set with ‘Goldfinger’ followed by ‘Angel Interceptor’, ‘Orpheus’ and ‘Shining Light’. Ash then go on to play a cover of the classic ‘Jump in the Line’ which definitely got the crowd singing along before moving onto what is considered their breakthrough song ‘Girl From Mars’. Despite being 30 years into their career Ash prove to be a band where the quality of a performance doesn’t falter & proceed to put on a great show.
As everyone is waiting for The Darkness to take to the stage, the lights suddenly go down and ABBA’s ‘Arrival’ starts to play throughout the arena. Whilst the intro song draws to a close, Justin Hawkins, Dan Hawkins, Frankie Poullain and Rufus Tiger Taylor stride out onto the stage before taking to their instruments and kicking it all off with ‘Rock and Roll Party Cowboy’ - the third single from their ‘Dreams On Toast’ album.
Having only a week before battled with a chest infection, Justin Hawkins still brings his incredible energy and levels of charisma to the table, giving the fans his all before cracking straight into ‘Growing on Me’. From where I was initially stood in the photo pit I can hear the arena behind me cheer in excitement as clearly it’s a fan favourite (it’s definitely one of mine - ‘Permission to Land’ altogether is a masterpiece, okay?)
I made my way to join the main crowd and The Darkness are now playing ‘Motorheart’ with pyrotechnics setting off all around the stage surrounding them in flames. By this point, as you can guess, Justin has lost his shirt (of which is totally understandable with those flames. I was stood toward the back and yet was roasting like a ham at Christmas). The band push on with the night performing more of their back catalogue with songs ‘Love Is Only a Feeling’, ‘Friday Night’, ‘Barbarian’ and ‘Heart Explodes’. From their newly released ‘Dreams On Toast’ album they played the likes of ‘The Longest Kiss’, ‘Walking Through Fire’ and ‘Mortal Dread’. The Darkness finished up their set with their most popular and well-known song ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’. Returning for an encore with the song ‘I Hate Myself’ where Justin climbed down to the barricade and crowd surfed before the night was up.
Though the UK leg of the tour is almost over, The Darkness will be taking ‘Dreams On Toast’ to Europe from 30th September through to 30th October 2025. The band will also be performing at Download Festival this June on Saturday 14th. Tickets available for their European tour can be found on through the link on their website.
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