When you go to see Them Crooked Vultures you expect to see Rock Gods and they deliver.
10 minutes into watching Them Crooked Vultures you will realize just how much better Dave Grohl is as a drummer than as a frontman and guitarist. His Nirvana job really suited him.
Them Crooked Vultures as a band is quite possibly as good as it can get for a live rock and roll band.
How can it not be? John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin on bass, Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age on guitar and vocals, Dave Grohl of Nirvana/Foo Fighters fame on drums and Eleven’s Alain Johannes rounded off other instruments. Its pretty damn good.
Despite all their combined heritage, Them Crooked Vultures doesn’t fall back on the past. There was no Led Zep, Foo Fighters, Nirvana or Queens of the Stone Age even hinted at. If anything, the closest they come to sounding like any classic rock band is on Scumbag Blues that reminds me of Cream.
This was a 100% Them Crooked Vultures show that included the entire album plus one extra song.
If anything there was a sameness to the songs. Live it is very much focused around Josh Homme and musically they sound most like Queens of the Stone Age.
But hey, you go and you get to see John Paul Fucking Jones, as Homme kept referring to him as.
Josh also made mention of Melbourne as his other home. His wife Brodie Dalle (Spinerette) is from here.
Check out the setlist:
No One Loves Me & Neither Do I (from Them Crooked Vultures, 2009)
Dead End Friends (from Them Crooked Vultures, 2009)
Scumbag Blues (from Them Crooked Vultures, 2009)
Elephants (from Them Crooked Vultures, 2009)
Highway One
New Fang (from Them Crooked Vultures, 2009)
Gunman (from Them Crooked Vultures, 2009)
Bandoliers (from Them Crooked Vultures, 2009)
Mind Eraser, No Chaser (from Them Crooked Vultures, 2009)
Caligulove (from Them Crooked Vultures, 2009)
Interlude With Ludes (from Them Crooked Vultures, 2009)
Spinning In Daffodils (from Them Crooked Vultures, 2009)
Reptiles (from Them Crooked Vultures, 2009)
Warsaw or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up (from Them Crooked Vultures, 2009)
Watch Them Crooked Vultures New Fang
Watch Them Crooked Vultures Warsaw
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Watch Them Crooked Vultures Scumbag Blues
Remaining shows for Them Crooked Vultures are:
Tonight, Melbourne, Festival Hall
January 25, Brisbane, Riverstage
January 26 and 27, Sydney, Hordern Pavilion
January 29, Wellington, TSB Bank Arena
January 30, Auckland, Vector Arena
