Eagles Of Death Metal – Islington Academy

Australian dirty rockers Jackson Firebird have returned to our shores and had the privilege of opening for Eagles Of Death Metal at their Reading and Leeds warm-up show at IslingtonAcademy.

It was an early start with Jackson Firebird hitting the stage at 19:30. The Mildura dirty rock duo never fail to impress, always putting on an energetic and entertaining show. Despite only having a small crowd, Jackson Firebird put their all into their performance and there was not a still body in the room by the time they had finished their set.

Blasting out tracks such as the high octane ‘Cock Rockin’ and ‘Little Missy’.  Brendan Harvey and Dale Hudak put on a no-holds-barred live show, producing a sound as big as a full band. It’s hard to believe that such a powerful wall of noise comes from two lads from the bush.

Jackson Firebird are an extremely promising band who win over the audience every time they play. It’s fair to say that people who knew who Jackson Firebird were before entering the Islington Academy were in the minority, but by the time they had finished playing murmurs of “That was awesome!” filled the room.

Anyone who caught them on this trip will be looking forward to seeing the mighty Jackson Firebird again when they return to the UK in November. Keep up the good work fellas!

The Virginmarys were next to take to the sweaty stage, and filled the room with ferocious drumbeats and fantastic riffs. The room had filled out a bit by the time they started their set, and it appeared that they had plenty of supporters in the crowd who were happily singing along.

Thrilling the crowd with their unique and interesting mix of blues and psychedelia with a heavy slab of rock, they completely captured the crowd with their explosive live performance; proving themselves to be a very promising British band.

 The Virginmarys had some very catchy tracks, even without hearing them before; they had you singing along with the choruses. There were actually a large number of people in the crowd sporting t-shirts with The Virginmarys logo on, and who after their set were more than happy just to hang out at the upstairs bar rather than watching the headliners.

The IslingtonAcademy was full to the brim of people and practically bursting at the seams with people by the time Eagles Of Death Metal hit the stage to play warm-up show.

 There was no sign of Josh Homme but frontman Jesse Hughes and co put on a fantastic show without him, and his presence was not missed – sorry Josh. Eagles Of Death Metal are a lot of fun, and their male dominated audience was hanging off of Jesse’s every word.

Blasting their way through a blistering set; Eagles Of Death Metal were on fire, they put on a faultless performance for their adoring audience, which included Green Day’s Tre Cool. One of the highlights of their set was The Damned’s legendary drummer Rat Scabies joining them on stage to give the drumkit a good workout.

Eagles Of Death Metal put on a faultless and entertaining show, every song was as well received as the next, making it impossible to pull out highlights. All the songs you would expect to hear were included in their extensive set list; ‘Anything Cept The Truth’, ‘Wannabe in LA’ and ‘I Want You So Hard’.

A big shout out has to go to their fantastic bass player Brian O’Connor, who was looking pretty darn good for a guy who ‘committed suicide’ back in June. Who knew corpses could play so well? O’Connor was diagnosed with an unspecified cancer back in 2010, and underwent chemotherapy; it was such a joy to see him onstage, having the time of his life and looking as healthy as ever.

It was great to see Eagles Of Death Metal in such an intimate setting, their set was pitch perfect and their music contains everything I crave from my rock – sex, humour, and a barrel load of fun. Definitely a band that have to be seen to be believed.