Listen: Foo Fighters, QOTSA, Led Zeppelin supergroup debuts music, performance

Them Crooked Vultures at the Metro in Chicago Sunday

Credit: themcrookedvultures.com

Them Crooked Vultures is airborn.

It's been in the works for almost four years, but the band made its debut live performance in Chicago on Sunday and has posted a 14-second taster-teaser on YouTube.

As previously reported, the group consists of Foo Fighters/Nirvana vet Dave Grohl on drums, Queens Of The Stoneage frontman and guitarist Josh Homme and legendary Led Zeppelin keyboardist/bassist John Paul Jones.

The group played a dozen songs Sunday at the Metro in Chicago after Lollapalooza shut-down. Sideman Alain Johannes, also QOTSA alum, helped out on guitar.

"The set's foundation was all about hard rock and hard edges, with Jones and Grohl going toe-to-toe in the engine room," said the Chicago Tribune on the peformance. "Homme played more with texture and layering sounds on his guitar, the first memorable riff showing up four songs into the set on 'Dead End Friends.' His high vocals were often bolstered by harmonies from Grohl, Johannes and Jones."

"The music was full of big riffs and QOTSA stomp and grit, occasionally proggy segues melding dirty blues rock to a more alt, grungy thump. Grohl may have slipped into his Bonham worship mode on the big beats and bigger fills, or maybe that's just what you hear when half a band's rhythm section happened to be in Led Zeppelin," reports Stereogum. "Josh, for his part, is not Jimmy Page. Nor is he Robert Plant. He's Homme through and through, and in taking vocals and guitars he more than defines the dynamic."

The setlist was as follows: "Elephants," "New Fang," "Scumbag Blues," "Dead End Friends," "Bandoliers," "Mind Eraser (No Chaser)," "Gunman," "Daffodils," "Interlude w/ Ludes," "Caligulove," "Warsaw," "Nobody Loves Me And Neither Do I."

Below, a teaser to that latter song, without vocals. We thought immediately of Zep's "Moby Dick," but we also have "It Might Get Loud" on the brain.

Them Crooked Vultures have MySpace and Facebook accounts up, as well as an official site, but seem to be actively working Twitter. Another post there shoots fans to a Google Earth shot of the Atlantic. We won't pretend to know what that means.

You can also buy a t-shirt for $30, too, if you're sure you already like the group that much. Plus $10 for "shipping" and tax....

Katie Hasty
Managing Editor

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After five years as a columnist and editor at Billboard, Katie Hasty joined HitFix in 2009 for music and film reporting out of New York. The Midwest native has worked as a writer, music promoter and in A&R since 1999 and performs with her band Numbers And Letters.