Them Crooked Vultures

Alain Johannes must wake up every morning and think he's the luckiest man in the world. And then he must remember that he sometimes has to play bass in the same band as John Paul Jones and start screaming.

In fairness, Johannes plays his part to perfection - efficient yet unobtrusive, knowing full well that it is the other three guys on stage that have caused the packed NME tent, extra security precautions and vague hysteria.

TCV's music is almost a perfect blend of Led Zepplin and Queens of the Stone Age. Which is unsurprising, when you consider that the band is effectively 1/4 Zep and 3/4 'Songs For The Deaf' era QOTSA. Heck, even the stage set up reveals this - Johannes and Josh Homme - tonight playing the role of self-effacing frontman - have one amp each; Jones has three stacks of them.

In truth, though, TCV are far, far more about the experience than the music. If you were to view this entirely dispassionately, what you have here are four middle aged men being horrendously self indulgent. Jones somehow manages to squeeze pretty much every instrument he has ever played into a 40 minute set - including what appears to be a 12 string bass. Homme prowls and growls in his usual fashion, pausing only to exhort the crowd to chant the name of Dave Grohl at regular intervals (and, to his credit, causing the drummer no little embarrassment). But the music, well, it's pretty easily forgotten. Eventually, TCV are going to need a trick other than just being TCV.