Saw a great rock concert on Wednesday night

I went to see the group Eagles of Death Metal with my brother Russ, my friend Jared from work and his buddy John. Jared brought with him another guy named John Ashker, who is friends with his brother and was staying in town for a motorcycle race. We found out that the guy is currently a stuntman and does a little acting on the side. Click on his name for his IMDB bio. Pretty cool!

Anyway, the concert ROCKED! The opening band (the giraffs) SUCKED and I mean really sucked. It wasn't that they didn't try to rock, they tried the shock-rock too hard. The lead singer reminded me of James Hedfield of Metalica, but weird. They were playing and spitting on each other. At one point, the lead guitarist walked over and spit in the drummers mouth. It was sick to the point that I almost wanted to vomit. However, once Eagles of Death Metal (EoDM) came out, everything was in perfect harmony.

Just to give a little background, first, they are NOT death metal. They're name is just a cleaver name, but it spurns from a conversation about how some dude was telling them that the 80's glam rock group "poison" was death metal. They argued back and fourth, then someone chimed in that poison was the "eagles of death metal" (the eagles are a great classic rock band from the 70's and early 80's, for anyone that doesn't know). This is where the name spurned.

The band's sound itself has a lot of inspiration from all kinds of rock and roll, but mostly the group itself is closely associated with Queens of the stoneage as well as Jack Black, and Dave Grohl (foo fighters). In fact, the lead singer has a very tennor or higher-pitched voice like Dave Grohl (however, Grohl likes to do a little screaming in there). The band was formed by Queens of the stonage frontman Josh Homme and by the current lead singer Jesse Hughes.

The coolest part was when we were in line out front, the whole group came out and talked to everyone. They took pictures, shook our hands, and thanked us for coming out to the show. During the entire show and in between each set, they were high fiving each other (for rocking out) and kept doing the typical "Salt Lake City ROCKS!" stuff, except they did it with engergy and put on the show for us like they meant it.

The lead singer is very charasmatic (reminded me of Dave Grohl but with red hair and a big mustache). He kept saying in between each set "SLC has some FINE looking ladies. By far the best looking ladies we have ever seen". He'd also refer to them as "beautiful babies" and "honies". He was just melting all of them and it was GREAT. It's what a real rock star does.

The music itself is also quite catchy. If anyone out there reads this, check them out and give them a chance to rock. They really do.

One funny quote I remember him saying was "truer words have never been spoken by a man with a mustache, but SLC has the FINEST looking baby girls here". I was cracking up on that one.

Jesse (the lead singer) was by far the nicest rocker I've ever met. He put on such an intense show, that his shirt was dripping with sweat by the end. He took it off and threw it into the crowd. I got a hold of it pretty good, but it was so wet, that it slipped right out of my hands. The guy just looked like he was having a blast rocking out on the stage, which is refreshing to see in a rock group. Here is a picture of him. Cool glasses. Cool mustache. Great stage presence (he did a lot of dancing while he played the guitar, which was funny/cool).