Woo hoo! Yeah! Yee-haa! Baby! Rock n’ roll! What the hell am I going on about? Just conveying the fun of the Eagles Of Death Metal live experience. This is rock how it should be – flat out, sexed up, foot-stomping and over enthusiastic. Ned Flanders lookalike and front man Jesse ‘The Devil’ Hughes is one charismatic dude, and it’s infectious baby!
All Eagles tunes are overloaded with rock n’ roll goodness, and it’s all the sweeter that they not only pull it off live, but deliver it so damn well. Having the big man, Joey Castillo from Queens Of The Stone Age is a humungous plus. Toss in the groovy bass of Brian ‘Big Hands’ O’Connor and Desert Sessions/Queens Of The Stone Age/Mondo Generator guitar hero Dave Catching, and bam!
The Eagles delivered a slick and debauchery laden stack of sexy blues riffage from all 3 of their rock n roll voodoo albums – Peace Love Death Metal, Death By Sexy, and Heart On. It was a smorgasbord of danceable horny party rock with the likes of I Got A Feeling (Just Nineteen), I Only Want You, and I Want You So Hard (Boy’s Bad News). Delirious young woman flashed their boobs, and were there any panties hurled on stage? I couldn’t see, I was forever between the bar and the floor, dancing to a love of rock n roll blues boogie.
It was one of those gigs that had the feel of a giant party, or was I just drunk? It was a little of both, as the Eagles reeled off Wannabe In LA, Chase The Devil and Speaking In Tongues. And holy crap, they’ve played homage to their 60’s counterparts (The Rolling Stones, who else?) with the garage rock of Brown Sugar! You want more? How about Don’t Speak, Stuck In The Metal, Cherry Cola, Whorehoppin’ (Shit, Goddamn) and Anything ‘Cept The Truth – brothers and sisters can I get a ‘Hell yeah!’
Am I being over-zealous about the Eagles Of Death Metal? No, not at all – this is rock n roll kids! Jesse Hughes and co. gave us one of the most fun gigs of the year – appropriate for the Big Top at Luna Park. It’s inadequacies of bad sound and the badly laid out over 18s area were insignificant against the saviours of rock, Eagles Of Death Metal.
