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Them Crooked Vultures, 9:30 Club, Washington, DC

14 October 2009 2,292 views No Comment

14th October 2009 –

 

 

Set list:

Elephants
 Dead End Friends
 Scumbag Blues
 Gunman
 Highway One
 New Fang
 Caligulove
 Bandoliers
 Daffodils
 Interlude with Ludes
 Reptile
 Mind Eraser (No Chaser)
 Nobody Loves Me and Neither Do I
 Warsaw

washingtondc

Them Crooked Vultures: Live Last Night

By Chris Klimek The Washington Post

As long as John Bonham and Kurt Cobain stay dead, there’s probably no more intriguing a musical home for their former band mates John Paul Jones and Dave Grohl, respectively, than Them Crooked Vultures, newest and superset of the super groups.

At the 9:30 club Wednesday night, rock’s own Justice League stuck to what’s been standard procedure since its debut two months ago, performing 85 minutes of unfamiliar, tempo-sliding, sternum-rattling rock. Classics in waiting, possibly, but no covers. No encores. No compromises. (Brute force and lots of loudness, after the jump.)

Front man Josh Homme (from Queens of the Stone Age) introduced the dozen serpentine new tunes by their Spinal Tap-like titles: “Caligulove,” “Scumbag Blues.” Money can’t buy this music! Not yet, anyway — song excerpts on YouTube are currently the whole of them Vultures’ official discography. But playing with a finesse to match their brute force, the musicians made these mysterious songs feel both surprising and inevitable. Also, they were very loud.

Homme was up for the job of riding herd over the colossal Jones-Grohl power plant, choking out dirty bursts of guitar and occasionally raising his voice to an agile falsetto. Multi-instrumentalist Alain Johannes completed the line-up, though he’s not an official member, which apparently means he has to wear a tie to work.

Them Crooked Vultures reportedly declined to replace the Beastie Boys as Lollapalooza headliners last summer, electing instead to greet the world at Chicago’s 9:30-sized Metro nightclub. Despite their preference for close quarters, they’re an arena-sized outfit that seduces you with grooves rather than slaying you with hooks.

 

 

 

 

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