EAGLES OF DEATH METAL + Matt Mays and El Torpedo @ Les Saints

By Angelica Calcagnile - BVST - 11/14/2008

Ah, anticipation. I had been looking forward to seeing the Eagles of Death Metal at Les Saints all week and I was ready to rock. After the epic boneriffic stomp of Bison B.C. on Monday and the jawdropping spectacle of Nine Inch Nails on Wednesday (both excellent shows), I was excited to end the week with some swampy booty shakin' action. I wanted to dress up, dress down and get hot and bothered in a room full of strangers... not a lot to ask for on a Friday night.

My anticipation doubled when I recently read that Josh Homme had reaffirmed his commitment to the band, and was no longer approaching EODM as a side project to Queens of the Stone Age, his regular paying gig. My, ahem, "admiration" for the strapping 6'4" ginger Elvis isn't a closely guarded secret, so I was looking forward to checking him out live in the steamy basement setting of Les Saints. Sadly, that was among the first disappointments of the night..."Baby Duck" Homme was nowhere to be found, and I had to settle for slick-haired instigator (and other founding member) Jesse "The Devil" Hughes instead... not exactly a bum deal, since Homme's counterpart brings more than his share of charisma and entertainment to the stage.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. After all, there must have been some dynamic opening acts on this rock'n'roll bill, right? ... Right?

The show was billed to start at 7:30. This being Montreal, I took that with a grain of salt, but upon my arrival at 8:30 I found that I had missed The Duke Spirit entirely and some of Matt Mays and El Torpedo. (Un)luckily for me, MM&ET proceeded to play what felt like the longest set ever of the most lukewarm "rock" that I've heard in a long time. As a friend of mine put it so aptly that night, it's actually really great, and totally note perfect... for a beer ad. Ultimately, there's nothing terribly wrong with this band or the music they play. The guys are all very handsome and non-threatening. I'm sure they're just as nice and if you like guitar-based music that isn't challenging or sexually or dangerous in any way, this could be your new favorite band. That said there couldn't be a worse opener for the EODM. In fact, Mays' brand of rock is so generic, insipid and devoid of testicular function that I could feel the room wilting and going limp with every subsequent chord change.

Of course, that isn't saying much, since the audience was mostly composed of dorm-dwelling frat boys, the only correct answer to the question "who the hell would desire to see BOTH Eagles of Death Metal and Matt Mays?". Though the two bands couldn't be more different, EODM is perceived as a novelty, and the amount of "straights" dressed up in Halloween-y outfits at the show is testament to that fact. Joke bands tend to attract a lot of casuals, whose interest in music tends to be cursory, and it's unfortunate to witness this band being written off in that way, since musically, there's a lot more to EODM than some might think.

The band proved that mightily that night with a rousing, rollicking and very satisfying performance. Hughes is a great entertainer, easily firing up the crowd with a stage presence reminiscent of Southern preachers, likely a by-product of his South Carolina roots. The rest of the band kept in perfect step, ripping and rolling through tracks from all three albums, although I detected a slight bias toward their first release Peace, Love, Death Metal - no complaints there. While the sludgy treatment on “Whorehoppin' (Shit, Goddamn),” and the stripped down encore performance of the slow burning “Already Died” in the encore were particularly satisfying, overall the band delivered exactly what I hoped they would - a sweaty, salacious, rip roaring time.

Sadly, I'm going to end this on a final sour note, although I recommend you read the last couple of paragraphs of my last review here, so that I don't have to repeat myself. This show, like the last, was at Les Saints, which, while not the worst venue in the city, consistently and inexplicably seems to attract the most inexperienced and ill-mannered people around. I'm not quite sure what's in the air down there, but every show there seems to be consistently populated by knuckle-draggers, wastecases, and weekenders, and frankly, I'm sick of leaving otherwise great rock shows feeling punchy rather than elated. It takes the focus off what we came there to do: rock out.

Got something to say about this show or anything else? Let's duke it out in the CJLO forums.

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