Eagles of Death Metal or a Random Brush with Fame

1: Chance encounter

As my buddy Jeff and I were approaching the Depot to see what time the Eagles of Death Metal went on stage I said "Hey that's guy." He was talking to a hot leather-bound girl with beautiful blue eyes. "Yes, I am," he said without missing a beat. The conversation with the girl was quickly concluding and she said "well I'll see you inside" and promptly left.

Seeing an opening we started to chat with him, but Jeff had a better idea. He had just called Mariah to see if we could go over to her old place which is currently being occupied by Mariah's sister-in-law Kali and her boyfriend. Instead of talking to Mariah, however, he simply handed the phone over to our Eagles of Death Metal friend. "Hey baby, how's it going?" he said and I busted up laughing. "Its Jessie. You know 'Eagles of Death Metal.'" Mariah, being the Mariah that she is, then proceeded to talk his ear off. Jessie didn't mind the attention, it would seem, and by the end of the conversation some minutes later, he found that he had been invited to an after party at Kali's. I was laughing the whole time he was talking to her, and I hadn't quite witnessed anything that funny in a long while.

Flush with our brush with rock and roll stardom, Jeff and I walked the few blocks to Kali's ArtSpace loft.

2: Moving out

The pre-concert crowd at Kali's was the mixture of the artist folk who are always there and various other folks interested in seeing EoDM. Artists are generally great partiers, have interesting, some might say quirky things to say, and always have a sense of style. Since I have no sense of style, but have interesting things to say, I get away with it and sort of fit in. My Wilkes-Barre, PA "Whiskey Business" tee shirt was a minor hit as a conversation stater and many were stunned that it was just a little neighborhood bar. It scored me free beers, so can only commend its success as a conversation-starter/beer-garnerererer.

With said beer in hand I then proceeded to talk the ear off the SLUG editors about a work-related issue which I shall ot speak of here. Suffice it to say it is something cool related to interships etc.

As we sitting on the porch at Pierpont, a big guy, a welder it turns out , walked by with some beer and said "I'm moving back to Vegas tomorrow and your the first people I've seen hanging outhere in the 3 months I've lived here."

"Salt Lake can be like that," I said. "You just have to know where to go."

"Too late for that." He seemed a bit embittered by his lonely Salt Lake existence. He was in town working on the construction of a new building. The job was finishing up and he was finished with SLC.

"You should go to the show with us," I said taking one of the beers he was offering up. "It is only 14 bucks." We convinced him of the coolness of the Eagles of Death Metal and he agreed to go.

3: The Set

The show itself was at the Depot. It has been putting on some great stuff thanks in great part to Cade the impressario who Friend Jeff knows quite well. With the demise of the old Zephyr there seem to be a slight decline in the number of shows coming through town. Nevertheless the Depot is a pretty decent venue. The prices aren't as bad as I was lead to believe for a stiff drink, the sound system is very good, and it is big. Really big.

The band started out strong and kept going until I think they had pretty much played everything possible to play. I lost track of their set, but they played about nine encores complete with the birthday song for the kick-ass guitarist. Mariah and Kali delivered the celebratory cake to said guitarist.

4: After Party

The band was good for its word and came over to ArtSpace and hung out. They were very friendly folk and got a kick out of my telling them about the wookie version of "Whorehoppin' Blues." I didn't actually give them the URL to the movie, and I would hope to hell they never find it online.

The party started out small, but grew increasingly larger as word got out that they were there. As I had to work the next day, I had to leave early. On the cab ride home the cab driver was quite chatty, but, like the bitter welder from earlier, wanted to talk more about his bad times in Utah rather than about our brush with rock and roll fame.

Bitterness is a common theme in SLC, I suppose, which, I'd like to say, was not repeated by the Eagles of Death Metal. "We've never had such a great show with such a great audience," Jessie, the lead singer, told the crowd at the after party. "I usually never go out after a show, but Salt Lake is great!"

Indeed.



Update: Urban Spelunker Dan Nailen of the SL Trib agrees that the show was full of extra-rock-goodness.

Update 2: LateJC is posting pics of the event (they were all his anyway.)