The Darkness at the Varsity Theater (September 19, 2025)
British hard rockers The Darkness played to a packed Varsity Theater charming the crowd in support of their new album, Dreams on Toast.
The Darkness Setlist
- Rock and Roll Party Cowboy
- Growing on Me
- Get Your Hands Off My Woman
- Mortal Dread
- Motorheart
- Walking Through Fire
- Barbarian
- Love Is Only a Feeling
- Givin’ Up
- My Only
- Heart Explodes
- The Longest Kiss
- Friday Night
- Japanese Prisoner of Love
- I Believe in a Thing Called Love
— Encore —
- I Hate Myself
- 9/19 Minneapolis, MN Varsity Theater
- 9/20 Milwaukee, WI The Rave/Eagles Club – The Rave Hall
- 9/21 Cleveland, OH Agora Theatre and Ballroom
- 11/7 Houston, TX Warehouse Live Midtown
- 11/8 Austin, TX Emo’s
- 11/9 Dallas, TX The Echo Lounge & Music Hall
- 11/12 Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern
- 11/13 San Francisco, CA The Fillmore
- 11/15 Boise, ID Knitting Factory Concert House
- 11/17 Portland, OR Revolution Hall
- 11/18 Vancouver, BC Commodore Ballroom
- 11/19 Seattle, WA The Showbox
- 11/21 Salt Lake City, UT The Depot
- 11/22 Denver, CO Summit Music Hall
After a crazy afternoon of torrential rain, the skies opened up and the West Bank of University of Minnesota campus looked great in the post-shower, pre-sunset evening. At the Varsity Theater, British hard rockers The Darkness were in town during the first part of a two phase US tour.
The opener was Mark Daly, a hard rock artist hailing from Cork, Ireland. His most recent album is 2024’s Devil’s Arms. Appearing as Mark Daly & The Ravens, the band (vocals, guitar, guitar, bass, and drums) were fired up, with Daly and his genre perfect baritone vocals all across the stage and his guitarists striking poses during various instrumental sections. Like many vocalist front men, Daly was emotive with expressive body language. Better Off Alone had all three guitarists on harmonies for the chorus, creating a good sound. A small bit of banter ended with “this next song is our saddest” and they moved into the slower tempo Brighter Days. Daly exited the stage for a longer guitar solo, giving center stage to his fellow band mate.
Jumping onto acoustic guitar (and playing as a lefty), Daly shared the unreleased song Crazy, preceded by the most sarcastic and amusing “please don’t record this and put it up on YouTube…because we’d hate for people to figure out who the f we are”. We got full head banging from the band on the intro to Superhero and Daly had some moments of full gravelly vocals and the crowd clapping section. And with the slightly extended outro, that pretty much checked all the genre boxes in a single song, which was quite impressive. Taking a moment to record the crowd scream happy birthday for his son back home in Ireland was a cute moment before going back to the rock. Finishing on Don’t Look Back, Mark Daly & The Ravens were excellent openers, successfully setting the mood.
Headliner The Darkness was up next. The hard rockers have been described as bombastic, and with album titles like 2005’s One Way Ticket to Hell…and Back, it edges up towards tongue in cheek. They have a history that matches their genre, with a break up and a member going through rehab. Getting back together after that five year break, The Darkness have put out a regular cadence of music, and are on tour to support their newest album, 2025’s Dreams on Toast. A quintet (vocals/guitar, guitar, bass, guitar/keyboards, and drums), they started with the banger Rock & Roll Party Cowboy. This was super high energy and lead singer Justin Hawkins had the crowd flying at his pace in the first few measures. This is a band that has honed its craft and they know what they are doing, with great poses, getting the crowd clapping, and more. A first break in the action, which included a Freddie Mercury like bit of singing and having the audience repeat it back ended with this: “I wish to swim among you, bring your strongest people”. That was the precursor to an instrumental with Hawkins crowd surfed across a sizeable portion of the main floor. He lost part of his audio equipment, but got it back from the audience at the end of the next number, the excellent Mortal Dread.
There’s great charisma, but The Darkness were also playing the hard rock music extremely well. The drummer (now shirtless) was pounding through songs providing a solid foundation for all of those guitar solos (most of them from brother Dan Hawkins). A slow down with a full change of instruments had Hawkins teaching choreography for the chorus of Walking Through Fire. Hawkins (also now shirtless, it seemed to be catching) now had an extremely long and rambling intro for the song Barbarian, but the crowd was eating it up. Givin’ Up got a knowing crowd singing loud and gave bassist Frankie Poullain a chance to shine musically and strutting while throwing picks into the crowd. Drummer Rufus Tiger Taylor got a chance to sing, with a country sounding number which was a good change of pace.
Crossing the hour mark, The Darkness showed no signs of slowing down, as a great drum beat led back to the hard rock sound. A late set number started with Hawkins alone on guitar and singing in falsetto before the band came back in. The Longest Kiss was a bouncy number and ramped up during the guitar solo. I Believe in a Thing Called Love was the perfect song to end the set on, with the band and audience jumping throughout. After a brief break and the encore, The Darkness had completed a 90+ minute performance full of showmanship and sending home a very appreciative crowd.
