The Darkness - Love Is Only A Feeling

2004

The Darkness - Love Is Only A Feeling (2004) Director: Alex Smith Era: Post-Millennial Glam Rock Revival (2004) - Peak of The Darkness's commercial dominance; final single campaign from Permission to Land during their BRIT Award-winning year, shot on location in Australia during the Big Day Out festival tour. High curatorial value as the final chapter of The Darkness's Permission to Land single campaign, representing the band at peak commercial power. The video is a well-documented location-specific artifact, the Blue Mountains shoot is confirmed across multiple sources, and its use of Australian landscape cinematography distinguishes it within the band's video catalogue. Serves as an important document of early-2000s glam rock revival aesthetics and the enduring power ballad video tradition. Context: Released in March 2004 as the final single from Permission to Land, this video arrived at the absolute zenith of The Darkness's commercial and critical peak. The band had just swept the 2004 BRIT Awards (Best Group, Best Rock Act, Best Album) and were mid-way through a global touring cycle that included Australia's Big Day Out festival, the very tour during which this video was filmed. The decision to shoot on location in the dramatic Blue Mountains rather than a studio or arena setting reflects both the logistical opportunity of the Australian leg and a deliberate aesthetic strategy: the scale of the natural landscape mirrors the song's emotional ambition as a power ballad, invoking the Bon Jovi 'Blaze of Glory' tradition of vast outdoor rock cinematography. The video functions as a document of the band at their commercial high-water mark before their rapid decline post-2005. Director notes: The video was filmed during The Darkness's Australian tour for the Big Day Out festival in early 2004. Locations include Flat Rock (Lincoln's Rock) in Wentworth Falls, the Devils Coachhouse in Jenolan Caves, and Walls Lookout off Bells Line of Road in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. The production made notable use of aerial helicopter photography to capture the sweeping cliff and valley landscapes. The single was released on 22 March 2004 in the UK. IMVDb lists no official crew credits for this video; the director attribution to Alex Smith derives from a single non-primary encyclopedia source (Grokipedia) and should be independently verified against physical single liner notes.