Posted by KB on February 2, 2010
With only one album released thus far, Them Crooked Vultures were never going to surprise anyone with their set list, but the question on everyone’s lips is whether they could possibly create a live experience as great as the sum of their legendary parts. So we headed to the Hordern for the first of their Sydney performances to find out.
Kicking off with ‘No One Loves Me & Do I’, the band created instant chaos among the crowd, setting the pace for what was to be an energy-charged event, before racing on through ‘Dead End Friends’. The slower, heavier pace of ‘Bandoliers’ gave fans a chance to catch their breath, while ‘Mind Eraser, No Chaser’ provided a rare singalong opportunity.
The driving force behind much of the song writing is obviously Josh Homme – on paper many of the tracks could find homes amongst those of QOTSA – but onstage the presence of the two other parts of this holy trinity were undeniable. In a return to his roots, Dave Grohl tirelessly pounded his way through crowd favourites like ‘Elephants’ and ‘New Fang’, giving the some of the younger fans a glimpse of a world before the Foo Fighters. And JPJ’s break out bass riffs on tracks like ’Scumbag Blues’ and an almost hauntingly beautiful keyboard solo prompted the broad shouldered men around me to emit the kind of high pitched squeals you’d expect to hear in the front row of a Beatles concert.
These are men who could well afford to rest on their laurels, bring out an album of fart noises and probably still sell out the Hordern (even if just to those who’d pay to be in the same room as a member of Led Zeppelin). But they didn’t. Instead Them Crooked Vultures have put the time and effort into crafting a tight live show, giving back so much of the love that is showered upon them. So when the fans emerged at the end of the show, some were raucously jubilant, others silently awestruck, but all of them were satisfied.
Check out the above picture, and more, on the Kluster Gallery.
Were you at the show? Tell us your thoughts.
them crooked vultures, josh homme, dave grohl, john paul jones