Them Crooked Vultures @Hordern Pavilion, Sydney(26/01/2010)

Mon 1st Feb, 2010 in Gig Reviews

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS FROM THE SHOW HERE.

It’s virtually impossible to appraise Them Crooked Vultures without being mindful of the legacies each member carries with them. While the dominant influence on the riffs and melodies is unmistakably that of Josh Homme, it is on stage in the between song sketches, the noodling in the margins where you can hear John Paul Jones working his magic, forged in decades of experiences, especially as part of one of the greatest rock acts of all time.

A capacity crowd, doing their best to ignore the beastly humidity, was marked by the childlike anticipation obvious on their faces. Led Zep, QOTSA and Foo Fighters t-shirts were the uniform de rigueur on the mixed-age audience.

It was chancy allowing The Art (formerly known as the Follow) to open proceedings. Typical of such an arrangement, the punters saw through the posturing and stood there with folded arms. The attitude was there but their simplistic songcraft let them down.

An hour later and Them Crooked Vultures arrive on stage at the rather civilised hour of 9pm. The roar is the kind you only hear when every single person in the venue has been waiting to be there for months.

As expected, they kick off with No One Loves Me & Neither Do I – forget about any kind of polite swaying or head-nodding. As soon as the beat shifted and the song hurtled into its demonic second phase, the crowd became a skyward entity, the oxygen disappeared, and the thermostat rose to a degree barely hospitable to humans.

Dead End Friends and then Scumbag Blues (with its irresistible hook) completed the opening triple salvo. The latter song was a chance for the band to stretch out, knowing full well it’s one of their best riffs, and allow some funky interplay led by JPJ. With the heat, the crowd visibly falters as the set chugs along, many appearing willing to jump around, yet paralysed. With the air like molasses, it’s easy to succumb to standing still and focusing on the interplay of musicians on stage.

Elephants lived up to its title; its monolithic riff made sexy by John Paul Jones. Gunman exceeded expectations, sounding truer to form live with a more organic drum sound, and played with fierce intensity, the Hordern bouncing. The band also airs a new track tonight, a positive sign that TCV will not be a short-lived vanity project.

New Fang is spat out with a staccato intro from Homme, strumming his guitar like a burly copper-coiffed Elvis, and when Dave Grohl starts pounding out his intro, we all head skyward yet again.

With some touring under their belt, the Vultures seem to be finding their way with the pacing of their set. As there is no encore, and some songs are about ten minutes in length, the band’s necessary ally is variety. The psychedelia-tinged blues jams to be found in between songs jams are surprisingly subtle and moody, and bring a touch of rock classicism.

With this kind of material, what saves the band from coming off as another adroit-yet-workmanlike stoner rock outfit is the musicality of John Paul Jones, and the fourth element added by the underrated Alain Johannes. Tall, shiny bald-headed and wearing a dark suit, Johannes impresses with a tasteful bluesy solo which gets the crowd slapping palms together in time. Smiling, affable and slightly avuncular in appearance, much like JPJ, Johannes fleshes out the sound by switching instruments and never missing a trick.

Mind Eraser, No Chaser and Homme’s famously falsetto vocals are countered with the harmonising of Grohl and Johannes, and occasionally Jones, who at one point rolls his eyes with dry amusement when a few lyrics escape him.

Caligulove and Bandoliers show off Josh Homme’s deft songwriting, reinforcing his ability to carry melody within a hard rock context without sounding cheesy. Spinning In Daffodils continues with the doom motif, at times obtuse but is tempered at the end with an astonishingly beautiful keyboard solo from Jones, which brings an elated cheer from the crowd – yes, let’s not forget we have a Led Zeppelin alumni on stage here.

A somewhat ragged Reptiles follows, lurching sideways, backwards and forwards, upside down and around and around. Now on the home stretch, Homme teases his drummer by telling the crowd, “Dave doesn’t wanna do another one…” A chorus of loud booing shakes the walls.

With the set’s thundering closer, Warsaw Or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up the band take on an extended jam, with Grohl and Jones locked into an unrelenting groove, while Johannes sears over and under Homme’s razor blade riffing. It’s the stuff rock – œn roll wet dreams are made of and sends the crowd off into the muggy Australia Day evening in a content stupor.