The ending is magnificent. Nebula's drummer, Ruben Romano, long hair lassooed in a historically accurate headband, is smacking the hell out of a giant gong hung behind him. First, mind, he ensures his petrol-doused beater is burning like a torch. Flame on, let's rock.
For a band who focus on a pared-down and brutal version of heavy rock, it's an unlikely flaring up of showmanship. Nebula, a power trio from LA, have a clarity, vision and possible seriousness that's rare in the stoner metal parallel universe they inhabit. Only Queens Of The Stone Age and Fu Manchu (a band all three members of Nebula once figured in) have the obvious skills and ideas to transcend the sludgy Sabbath riffs of that scene. And, as Nebula's new album, 'Charged', proves, they're as close in spirit to garage rock firebrands like The Stooges and Mudhoney.
Which is not to say they can't play those pulverised Brummie blues riffs as well. Tonight's show is a celebration of precise rock technique, one of those odd days when virtuosity - the hours perfecting Led Zep riffs in teenage bedrooms - is more of a blessing than a hindrance. Singing guitarist Eddie Glass has the look of a young Ritchie Blackmore with his trimmed beard and neck-hugging medallion (though mercifully without the Witchfinder General drag). He plays, though, like a rigorous disciple of Jimi Hendrix: great lurching riffs, clear and ecstatic solos, and plenty of extra wah-wah.
It's old man's music, you might think, and, to a degree, you'd be right. Nebula are a metal band, but they've as little in common with Slipknot as they have with Coldplay. Still, when they kick off on the self-explanatory 'Ignition' or 'Do It Now', the tremendous forthcoming single, there's a fierce purpose and controlled wildness to these hurtling biker anthems that's truly awesome.
Here, they're supporting the distinctly less streamlined metal of Orange Goblin, whose name might conjure up terrible vistas of Tolkienish whimsy, but who in fact play in front of a rather unmystical QPR banner. For pure old-school, diesel-guzzling, megablast rock'n'roll, though, there's no contest: Nebula rule.
