The Darkness to Rock the Astoria Once More

the extent to which the media/sponsors/in-crowd just wither at the sight of justin's leather decorated crotch is sickening too. at best i'd say they're a bit of harmless fun, hell they make people smile, but how anyone can claim they're any more than a parody (and that they're lapped up for that very reason) is beyond comprehension. and anyway, these fucking carling homecoming things are meant to take long established and succesful bands back to their roots in unnaturally cosy confines aren't they? how is sticking a band that nobody gave a fuck about 6 months ago and will have forgotten about in 6 months doing that? And putting them in a venue not much smaller than ones they're playing now? They're a marketing man's wet dream. He's not dumb that justin, i'll give him that.

how the fuck is playing the fucking astoria getting back to your roots?

i remember seeing them at the water rats a while back. they were shit then, as now

<i>"Think back, earlier this year, The Darkness were cult heroes, hated by most of the music press for being 'some cock rock band', to the point the 'music press' (read: NME) wouldn't touch them with yours, yet through support from X-Fm, Dazed and Confused and sites such as DiS and Playlouder, they built up a following great enough to headline The Astoria."</i>

Ughhhhhhh....
Sorry to interrupt the article's backslapping...
But that aforementioned Water Rats club in this article's comments section was actually run by one of the main NME staff members. But hey, details y'know, don't let them get in the way...
Like (many) many now, I hold zero respect for NME in the state it's been the last few years. But surely the general opinion on the rag is a given now, and doesn't require mutual masturbation like this to show how great you (whoever) all are at its expense, it's barely much more pleasant / less tiresone. They do enough damage themselves

I think In The City was also one of the (The?) primary key factors in them finally getting going on a much bigger scale and things snowballing very nicely ever since. Especially as it gave their London-ish fans a reason to clamour and write about them not as quite-such-unknowns on a wider scale now.

I'd have said Glasto was where they stopped being a fairly large underground band (with the no 11 single that dropped like a stone) and actually started getting mainstream support. There are loads of overnight success bands in the rock/indie world, but very few actually go on to become full fleged pop acts like the darkness have.

I note the article didn't mention the Fly magazine who were also there from the start, or PopEx - the website that plugged all the early gigs including Uncle Bobs.

Anyway, I'll let y'all know how the Astoria gig is. I managed to get hold of 2 tickets...

I'm not fucking surprised you have. If there weren't so many pricks in London then the Astoria would still have thousands of them too.