Highlights from Them Crooked Vultures in Melbourne

Lemon Squeezings satellite reporter Nina McLean wrote the following after seeing Them Crooked Vultures in concert on Friday, Jan. 22, in Melbourne, Australia:

The 90-minute set was incredibly tight. Interestingly, the only mistake I heard was one that Jonesy made in the middle of a piano solo that was in "Spinning in Daffodils." Hilarious! He just seemed to lose what he was playing for a moment. The piano solo itself had most people in the audience sniggering, it may as well have come straight from the middle of "No Quarter," quite obviously on purpose. I was having trouble deciding whether I should be laughing or crying and eventually settled on a combination of the two.

In the middle of "Mind Eraser, No Chaser," Josh and Jonesy swapped sides on stage, very cool. They ran into problems however, when Jonesy had to sing backing vocals in the chorus and discovered that he couldn't reach Josh's microphone, it was waaaaay higher than our man was able to get. Everyone had a bit of a laugh about this, Jonesy included.

It was strange hearing Josh actually SING in "Interlude with Ludes." He tends to kind of shout or speak the lyrics, clearly singing isn't high on his list of priorities, and more power to him for that. But, in "Interlude with Ludes" he really cranks out some high notes that sound utterly bizarre coming from such a big bloke. It was hilarious seeing him and Jonesy stand close to each other; the former could have ripped the latter in two!

There was an extended jam in the middle of "Warsaw" in which, get this, both Jonesy and Josh stood up on their respective sides of the drum riser and played facing Dave. At this point the roar from the crowd was so loud that I'm fairly sure that the roof came off for a few moments.

Josh gave it up to both Dave and Jonesy a couple of times during the set, although both times Jonesy was referred to as "John Paul F***ing Jones." I had no idea that he'd taken on another name. Live and learn, I guess!