SUIT YOURSELF MAGAZINE ONLINE | Gig Review

Gig Review - Eagles Of Death Metal

Monday 6th April 2009 @ Academy, Bristol
With Support From: The Hot Melts

What better way to shake off those back to work, Monday blues than with a raucous rock gig? The band providing tonight’s anarchy in the Academy are Eagles Of Death Metal. Supporting them on their current tour are a favourably quirky band called The Hot Melts.

I couldn’t possibly think of a band that could support EODM but The Hot Melts pull it off pretty well. All six songs of their set were wonderous, riff-tastic heavy guitar affairs. Every song had a catchy hook and a great guitar riff to win over the most hardened of punters. They are like an American Status Quo but with many more chords!

Then the atmosphere changed to a ridiculous child like anticipation for the headline act; it was almost as though you could feel in the air that this was going to be a good show! Eagles Of Death Metal take to the stage in a flurry of camp dances and Village People moustaches. They are met with almost deafening screams from the crowd – I had honestly not seen such a responsive crowd at the Academy for some time. The band picked up on it instantly and thanked Bristol between every song for being; “a million times better than Birmingham”.

As the gig went on, the crowd got more and more frantic and the band fed of it and Jesse literally could not stop smiling through his big moustache. They played a lot of songs from the new album Heart On but what really made the room erupt were the songs Cherry Cola and Speaking In Tongues. Cherry Cola was the true highlight of the evening for me it was the song that first made me aware of the band.

Eagles Of Death Metal were so impressed with the Bristol crowd that they stayed for a six song encore. Hopefully they will tell every band they meet so that this city gets more big touring bands here than we do currently.

Even though there was a huge rumour that Brody Dalle (The Distillers/Spinerette) was to provide backing vocals for the evening, she was no where to be seen. They truly didn’t need anyone else on stage though as Jesse and his crew made this gig one of the most fun shows I have ever witnessed!