Live Review – Eagles Of Death Metal

The Eagles of Death Metal sound nothing like what you would describe as death metal as they sure as hell sound nothing like The Eagles.  Hey Hey My My’s intrepid rock true believer Andrew Rutter went to their Melbourne show to explain what they do sound like.

On a cold Melbourne Sunday night hundreds of brave and hardy rock dogs packed out The Palace to witness some classic garage rock from the Eagles of Death Metal.

The Eagles of Death Metal fulfill the checklist of rock-star awesomeness like few other bands: 1) each member has a bad-ass nickname; 2) they rock an open-D tuning; 3) they’re homies with Dave Grohl and Jack Black; and 4) they trade in bourbon-soaked, denim-clad filthy rock’n’roll. The two messiah’s of Rock and Roll Josh “Baby Duck” Homme (QOTSA) and Jesse “Boots Electric” Hughes produced their mind-blowing debut, Peace, Love, Death Metal in 2004. With its pastel cover and baby-pink vinyl it was saturated with some serious blues riffs, foot-stomping drums, and everything in between.

In 2006 Eagles Of Death Metal sentenced us to Death By Sexy. It was an ass-shakin boots-quakin’ album chock full of rock’n'roll voodoo goodness, sending up and celebrating the high-Seventies hybrid of garage, glam and scuzz rock and was described as ”a masterpiece of horny fun and one mighty party album” by Uncut.

With their third album, Heart On, the duo are as danceable as ever and have descended further into the well of innuendo. They’ve tiptoed away from straight musical pastiche, crudding up their blues boogie with sleazy tales of tight pants, loose women and masturbation. They’re “as close as anyone has come to the Rolling Stones‘ sexual stomp in their prime”, said The Guardian.

With these three great albums of material to draw upon the gig delivered song after song of fuzzy, funny, skuzzy and sleazy rock n roll. If you were inventing a rock band from scratch it would most likely resemble EODM. Big, bad bassist Brian O’Connor with wild hair and dressed in black, Darling Dave the bald, bespectled, eccentric lead guitarist squeezing out 70’s licks, the hardest hitting drummer alive Joey Castille (from Queens on the Stone Age) pounding the skins with his huge tattooed guns and the quintessential frontman Jessie Hughes with his hair, tache and shades who promised the ladies to “love you good and love you hard”.

EODM are in the serious business of having a good (but very, very bad) time, standing on the shoulders of giants to do it – with those giants being most obviously the Stones, the Stooges and Ramones. Their concerts exude so much bluster and lechery you need a shower to feel clean again. With their liberal deployment of hand clapping, ass-shaking, foot-stomping swashbuckling good times in the face of broken hearts, God very clearly gave rock and roll to you, EODM.

The boys brought an A-grade set to town as they kicked off with I Only Want You and Make A Bang. which were accompanied by a crowd-surfing blow-up sex doll that ended up as a gift to Jessie. They rolled through I Like To Move It, Just 19, Don’t Speak, Midnight Creeper, Stick In The Metal and Anything Cept The Truth.

The encore began with a solo Jessie strumming his way through an homage to the Ramones Beat On The Brat and AC/DC’s High Voltage which are appropriate pointers to the band’s influences before the band rejoined him as they stormed through another major influence, Brown Sugar by the Stones. Then came crowd favourite Cherry Cola before they punched out on a high with Wanna Be In LA and Speaking in Tongues.

As Hughes declared repeatedly “this is the greatest job in the world”. That sums up the Eagles Of Death Metal spirit neatly. Until the Rolling Stones rediscover their verve, we are delighted to have the Eagles of Death Metal filling their shoes. Jessie “I would kiss his boots electric” reminds us all what it is to have fun at a gig.  Forget the posing and the poncing that I was unfortunate to see with the Killers at V Festival (why the hell did I stay?). He reminds everyone what it means to rock again, few acts do that anymore and it is so very good.  EODM are not full self importance, they don’t want to save the world, they don’t want to make us & them better people, it is all about what it means to rock again, and for that I am so very grateful.  EODM are here to remind us the 70′s are cool to dance to.  If there were more bands out there like that it wouldn’t suck so much that it is at least 2 years between tours.