Let’s forget the rubbish uninteresting opening act and get straight to the meat of the matter. After long last I was at an AIC gig, sandwiched between a tiang and a smug Comic Book Guy lookalike befriending the mamat sound dengan harapan dapat set list at the end of the show.

Forget what AIC looked like then, and forget what I was seeing in front of me come 9pm. Mike Inez’s bass intro simply opened into the crazy wah work of Jerry Cantrell on Rain When I Die. Then, that voice. Fake – you are so right. William DuVall doesn’t imitate, but his voice is so damn uncanny. That wasn’t just it – Them Bones was next. I’ll paraphrase Julia Roberts’ Pirates of Penzance comment again.

The early songs in the set were a mish-mash of Dirt until they played Lesson Learned. To reiterate what I’ve written in an earlier post, Black Gives Way To Blue sounds as if Staley never died, with the band picking up where they have left in 1995. Cantrell’s playing is so underrated, in my opinion. With the so-called grunge explosion in the early 90s, all these Seattle bands were lumped in one basket with punters like me not noticing how Sabbath-like they were as opposed to a band from the Sub Pop catalogue.

My highlights of the evening was Check My Brain and my all-time favourite, It Ain’t Like That, which saw me doing my ‘meratib‘ move with my dreadlock-less head. They did an obligatory acoustic set kicking it off with No Excuses (What? No Nutshell?). Cantrell said a few words of thanks and dedicated the haunting Black Gives Way to Blue to Staley. They ended the main set with the crowd-jumping Man In The Box.

They came back with a not-so acoustic Nutshell, but it was enough to send me shivers. Riki, Firr and the Neon – this song’s for ya! Would? and Rooster ended their well-compiled set.

I never check out their set list prior to coming to a show, but I found out later that the set was pretty much the same throughout their European tour. It doesn’t really matter. I have waited this long, they could’ve played Them Bones four times in a row and I won’t even care.

And, yeah. Smug Comic Book Guy got his set list.

Nottingham Rock City 6.12.09 set: Rain When I Die / Them Bones / Dam That River / Again / Lesson Learned / Check My Brain / Love, Hate, Love / It Ain’t Like That / A Looking In View / Your Decision / No Excuses / Black Gives Way To Blue / Last of My Kind / We Die Young / Acid Bubble / Angry Chair / Man in the Box // Encore: Nutshell / Would? / Rooster