Eagles of Death Metal @ The Liquid Room

With the rumours of part time EODM drummer Josh Homme's presence ultimately proving unfounded once former QOTSA tub thumper Gene Trautmann sits down on the stool tonight, it seems that not one member of this pent up Liquid Room posse could care less anyway. To boot, by the time frontman Jess Hughes gets his tache on stage; the theatrics, the banter and most importantly, the licks, put any such hearsay firmly in the rear view mirror. Dave Catching lays down some tasty, bluesy slide soloing as a mid show breakdown to punctuate the crowd favourites while Hughes, pacing back and forth in a frenzy, makes his thorough enquiries into how much the crowd can "dig it." Once he has a resounding "quite a bit, actually" that customary Liquid Room curfew threat is shown the bird for the sake of a few more tunes. And as tunes go, this is, all told, uber-catchy Status Quo on crack, but as rock 'n' roll shows go, this is nothing less than sweet perfection. [Johnny Langlands]