The Darkness – Powerstation: February 17, 2026 (13th Floor Concert Review)
The Darkness performed at Powerstation last night, bringing sweat-soaked falsettos, razor-sharp riffs and unapologetic glam theatrics to a packed and heaving Auckland crowd, proving that even in 2026, pure, joyous hard rock still feels immediate, communal and impossible to replicate once the lights come up.
Last night at Powerstation felt warm before it even properly began, the kind of close, humming warmth that comes from a room filled with expectation rather than just bodies. The stage glowed in a wash of molten orange with THE DARKNESS looming behind it, but before that flare of glam and falsetto, we were handed something I was unprepared for;
RAGEFLOWER
RAGEFLOWER, Sydney’s Madeleine Powers, stalked onto the stage in a green tartan jacket that nearly melted into the accompanying drum kit, swirling eldritch green as though it had been dipped in neon slime. Visually captivating, no arena-sized ego, just a grounded sincerity that immediately translated into a killer sound. Hands On and Sign of Life settled into the room with thick, rolling drums and a guitar presence that felt physical rather than ornamental. Push Pin was a stunning standout and landed heavy, the kick drum punching cleanly into the chests of the crowd while her voice, deep and textured, hovered somewhere between yearning and menace.
She introduced the song as being about obsession so intense you’re not sure whether you want to kiss someone or kill them, and the delivery matched that tension perfectly. There was expert control in her distortion, a patience in how Angel Things later built under cold blue lights, her vocal drifting ethereal before letting the guitars claw their way through. Kerosene, bluntly described as being about “a fucking coward,” carried a boldness that could have faltered in a room waiting for something bigger, but instead drew people closer.
By the time she orchestrated a clap-along – an absolute dice roll for an opening act, that landed instantly and authentically with the crowd – it felt less like an opening act gamble and more like a confident claim on the space. Desk Job closed out the set with a drop to her knees and a final, raw scream that felt genuinely wrung out, then a quick exit while the band played out. A real opening set, theatrical but not hollow, and the rarity of one that can warm and prime a crowd for a band like The Darkness.
And then the anticipation shifted as each minute drew us closer to 9 p.m.
The Darkness
Over the PA, “You Got the Touch… You Got the Power…” looped long enough to become its own ritual. The red lights rose slowly. The crowd thickened towards the stage. And when The Darkness finally stepped into view, it wasn’t with forced theatrics but with that effortless, slightly mischievous confidence that has defined them for decades.
Rock & Roll Party Cowboy burst open the night with sharp precision, the guitars slicing cleanly through the haze while the drums landed with deliberate weight. Growing On Me and Get Your Hands Off My Woman followed in quick succession, and the room transformed into a single voice, chanting back lyrics with the sort of enthusiasm that only comes from songs that have travelled alongside you for years.
Justin Hawkins spoke between songs with that beautifully casual British cadence, telling a story about getting sick in Japan and missing out, “crying tears, real tears, from my eyes” but promising they were there to make it up to us. There was humour, but also something quietly earnest. It’s easy to forget how long this band has been part of people’s personal timelines until you look around and realise that for many in that room, these songs have stitched themselves through entire chapters of life.
Mortal Dread and Motorheart pushed the set into heavier territory, flirting with the DNA of classic glam and hard rock without sounding dated. At one point Hawkins balanced himself in a handstand against the drum riser, an early display of unrivaled pageantry that almost made me want to snap my phone in half and jump from the balcony into the crowd with fearless joy. Walking Through Fire became one of the night’s defining moments, not just because of the riff but because of what it did to the crowd. He instructed us to turn, to raise fists, to move together, and hundreds of newly bonded strangers complied instinctively – gleefully at the whim of their musical puppet masters.
Barbarian hit with force, drums resonating deep in my gut, while Love Is Only a Feeling shifted the mood into something almost … reverent? And this is where I found myself distracted not by the band but by the glitter bomb of phone screens lifting into the air. It’s easy to roll your eyes at that glow, to wish people would lower their devices and simply exist in the moment, but the impulse makes sense. We record because we want to hold onto something. We want to revisit it. We want proof that it happened.
But there’s a quiet tragedy in that instinct. By focusing on capturing the memory, we slice and stretch and thin the experience itself into nothingness. The moment becomes something half-lived, already converted into future nostalgia before it has even fully arrived. To paraphrase the words of a newborn superhero, something isn’t beautiful just because it lasts. It’s beautiful because it doesn’t.
Last night felt like holding something fragile in the palm of your hand, aware that it would dissolve the second you tried to grip it too tightly. Like a racoon staring mystically at candy floss dissolving into water, watching sweetness turn into nothing, bewildered and greedy and enchanted all at once. In trying to fill our lives with permanent records, we risk missing the fleeting sensations that make those memories meaningful in the first place.
There was a moment during I Believe In A Thing Called Love where I lowered my own mental review lens from my vampiric silhouette hidden in a secluded dark corner and just stood there. No need to preserve it. No need to replay it tomorrow. Just falsetto, guitar, and the sound of hundreds of people singing as though it mattered. And it did matter, because you don’t get to rewind a live solo, and you don’t get to re-experience the bass vibrating through your ribs the next day in quite the same way.
The Longest Kiss carried a playful piano-driven bounce that flirted with glam theatricality, while Friday Night briefly stripped the room back to a cappella before rebuilding into something exuberant and loud again. A bluesy lead-in melted unexpectedly into Immigrant Song, and for a few sweaty, euphoric minutes the room felt suspended between homage and reinvention. The encore leaned fully into indulgent fun, riffs sliding in and out of recognition before I Hate Myself closed the night at a frenetic pace, guitars bending and stretching as though reluctant to let the evening end.
What lingered long after the final chord wasn’t just the falsetto or the solos or the theatricality. It was the shared experience of it. The idea that something can be yours privately and communal simultaneously. That a gig is both intensely personal and deeply collective. You stand there as yourself, carrying your own history, your own associations with a song, and yet you’re stitched together with everyone else in that room for those few hours.
We may be reaching a point of exhaustion with documenting our lives for future consumption, whether for ourselves or for others. Perhaps we’re tired of living for the replay. Last night felt like a reminder that the value lies in the immediacy. In experiencing something with the full awareness that you won’t get to watch it tomorrow in the same way. That every chord, every shout, every bead of sweat exists only in that moment.
And this might sound ironic, hypocritical from a person who quite literally records these moments in time – but it’s a sacrifice I make so that you don’t have to feel obligated, and the highest praise that can be offered to me as a reviewer is to let you, the reader, vicariously experience those moments as though you were there. To add colour to the outlines of memory.
And it’s in that I can say, The Darkness didn’t just play a set at Powerstation so much as they reinvigorated a crowd with the frenetic, messy, visceral beauty of being human. They crystallised something simple and essential; that live music isn’t about preservation. It’s about presence. About allowing a fleeting, imperfect, loud and joyous moment to drift through your fingers like smoke, knowing it will never exist again in exactly that form.
Because it’s in embracing that duality – the finite nature of experience and existence colliding with the infinite glamour and glory of hard rock – that we get as close as we can to feeling alive; wide-eyed, terrified, delighted, exhilarated, exhausted, connected, and free.
I believe music – particularly live music – is one of the only things in our universe that can consistently and authentically deliver that. And last night, somewhere in all of that chaos, sweat, distortion, and falsetto, a small crowd in Auckland was given no choice but to remember what that really feels like.
Oxford Lamoureaux
Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Den:
The Darkness:
RAGEFLOWER:
RAGEFLOWER Setlist
Hands On
Sign of Life
Hot Glue
Somebody New
I Don’t Believe in Love
Push Pin
Angel Things
Kerosene
Desk Job
The Darkness Setlist
Rock & 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
One Way Ticket
I Hate Myself
