Elephants

I see a fair amount of rock shows. Not as many as I used to, obviously, but still a decent number for an old married guy with kids. I don't take too many chances with my concert dollars, usually seeing bands I love or newer acts whose albums I really dig. Last night, I attended a show at the House of Blues featuring a band that has yet to release a full song: it was the Boston debut of Them Crooked Vultures, the new supergroup featuring Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin and Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters/Nirvana (the less famous but talented Alain Johannes of QOTSA is also part of the touring band). Being a huge fan of all the principals and watching plenty of live fan-shot clips on YouTube from the band's handful of previous gigs, I knew this was going to kick ass. I was not mistaken.

I wasn't alone in my anticipation. The show was sold out, a pretty big leap of faith for a band that won't release its debut album until late this year. Right off the bat, TCV ripped into "Elephants," an 8-minute breakneck stomper that featured Grohl pounding the living crap out of his drumkit while Homme, Jones and Johannes wailed away on their instruments. Grohl really belongs behind the drums, not "singing prom songs" with the Foo Fighters, as Bobby D. put it last night.

Bob and I were lucky enough to witness the first Foo Fighters tour in 1995, a few months before their debut came out in the same venue (then called Avalon). The Foos played a blistering opening set of songs we'd never heard before, and then served as headliner Mike Watt's backing band with two drummers: Grohl and original Foos/Sunny Day Real Estate drummer William Goldsmith. Then we saw the Foos come through again as headliners a few months later.

Last night, as awesome as Homme was, and he was the frontman and architect of the music, it was Grohl and Jones who commanded most of the attention. I've seen some great rhythm sections over the years (Geddy Lee and Neil Peart of Rush come immediately to mind), but I can't think of a better one than Grohl and Jones. The songs were primarly big riffers; to my mind, it sounded like QOTSA with Led Zep's rhythm section. If anyone could step into John Bonham's shoes these days, it'd have to be Grohl. We tend to forget about his skills as a drummer since his main gig is singer and guitarist of the Foos, but it's projects like this and his stint behind the kit on QOTSA's 2002 album Songs for the Deaf that remind us of his immense talent.

It was also pretty cool to see Jones play for the first time. I was too young to see Zeppelin before they split up after Bonham's death in 1980 and Jones hasn't done much in the way of touring since then. He looked like he was having a good time and was in good shape, keeping up with his younger cohorts while playing an impressive array of basses, including a slide bass.

TCV played about 80 minutes with no encore (check out Blabbermouth for some half-decent fan-shot video of a bunch of the songs). All originals, no covers. I'm looking forward to the album to dig into the songs more. If the band does come around again, you can bet they'll be playing a much larger venue. I'm glad I was able to see them from about 25 feet away. Doesn't get much better than that.

Check out TCV kicking into "Elephants" at Brixton Academy in London back in August: