The young members of Irontom definitively want to put the theatrical, the bravado and the grandiose back into indie rock. I saw them months ago at the Satellite and was totally taken by surprise because of the combination of their young age and absolute boldness on stage, and I was again impressed by their performance yesterday night at Dragonfly.
‘Thank you to Irontom for rocking out the house’ said Alain Johannes after their set. The ex-Queens of the Stone Age/ Them Crooked Vulture (among so many other bands) man is producing their full-length album and he took the stage just after them to perform a few songs with his acoustic cigar-box guitar, reminding us what an incredible guitarist he is. It was also funny to see him in this small club, just weeks after his performance with Dave Grohl as one of the Sound City Players at the Palladium.
If the young Irontom members are surrounded by rock’ n’ roll royalties – beside Johannes, guitarist Zach Irons and drummer Dylan Williams are respectively the son and nephew of Jack Irons, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ former drummer, who is now drumming for the Wall Flowers – they certainly raise to the expectations. Their performance at Dragonfly was an explosive set of songs played with a stadium-rock sound, an intense energy recruiting each fiber of their body, smashing loud guitars and the theatrical-super-expressive vocals of their frontman and singer Harry Hayes. There is an epic-cathartic dimension to some of their songs, they do not hesitate to go all bombastic with Hayes’ bold vocals, almost operatic at times, and you know what? It doesn’t sound forced at all. They have already drawn comparisons with Led Zeppelin and the Arctic Monkeys in reviews, and there is certainly this immediate classic-rock flavor in ‘Mind My Halo’ or ‘Goin Slow’, which, live, installed strong drama combined with an ambitious sound and complex melodies, particularly catchy on ‘Goin Slow’.
They played a lot of songs not featured on their EP, ‘The Loose’, and I will have to listen to them again, as the sound of the club was extremely loud, but all of them were played with the same energy and boldness, The second one was entitled ‘Nitro’, according to their setlist, and it may well say everything about who they are on stage.
