With shows like the Sound City Players and Iggy Pop and the Stooges taking my focus at this year’s SXSW, I thought I should probably keep the rock and roll vibes going by checking out one of the finest rock and roll bands in the industry: Eagles of Death Metal. And I wasn’t the only one. The room was full of more musicians here to see one of their favourite bands than at any event the whole week. And lurking side of stage were people such as Brad Wilk from Rage and Chris Goss from Masters of Reality, both of whom were a part of the Sound City Players concert the night before. But alas, neither joined the band on stage.
Performing before Eagles took to the stage, however, were a band from LA called Atomic Tom, who found themselves struggling to win over the crowd ahead of the band most of the audience had come to see. They make the sort of radio friendly “epic rock and roll” that bands like Eagles of Death Metal prove to be the antithesis of, and as a fan of the latter, and rarely of the former, unfortunately I couldn’t get caught up in it either. Even a cover of “Don’t You Want Me” wasn’t enough to get them over the line. That said, their closing song, “Take Me Out”, which heralds comparisons to The Cure, was an easy highlight of the set, and showed that maybe there was more to the band than what I experienced tonight. Still, overall, probably not a band for me.
Eagles of Death Metal, however, definitely are, and where Tom’s crowd was pretty lackluster (no fault of the band, just their timing, perhaps), by the time the Eagles took to the stage, the venue was packed and manic – they took it from zero to one hundred the minute the hit the stage, and lead singer Jesse Hughes proclaimed that “I have turned myself into an experiment for the sake of rock and roll! I wil shake my dick off tonight for you even if it kills me!”. Touche.
“I Only Want You” opened up proceedings, ahead of “Don’t Speak (I Came To Make a BANG)”, “Bad Dream Mama”, “Cherry Cola”, “I like to move in the night”, a cover of “Stuck In The Middle With You”, “Whorehoppin (Shit, Goddamn)”, “Flames Go Higher” and “I Want You So Hard”, which closed out the night. This is a band who rock their “dicks off” without playing “cock rock”. They’re a band who are bad arse in every sense of the word and just want to make fun rock and roll. It’s not to be taken seriously, but at the same time, when Jesse Hughes speaks, you feel like you’re a member of his congregation, and we should definitely be worshiping him.
They’ve been off the road for some time now, so it was fantastic to see them back as they ready a new album. Josh Homme was reportedly involved, though unfortunately he wasn’t part of the performance today. The night ended with what would be best described as a “booty shaking finale” and plenty of jamming, too. They might be a fun band, but that doesn’t mean they’re not phenomenal musicians as well! And they certainly are. Easily one of the most energetic, entertaining performances of the festival, though we’d expect no less!
