Queens Of The Stone Age (Reading & Leeds 2010)
Posted: Tue Sep 7 19:33:03 2010 by Rory Cargill
Having re-released the classic Queens Of The Stone Age album 'Rated R', it was expected of the band to play mostly tracks from this album, and they sure did deliver. The Queen's lineup has changed several times over the years, leaving it mainly as a Josh Homme project, his confident persona leaving myself and others rather starstruck as he wandered on stage. Opening on 'Feel Good Hit Of The Summer' the mostly intoxicated crowd were able to scream which drugs they were on along with Queens themselves.
QOTSA are rock heroes. Live, the power of their crunching guitars leads to an intense performance. The ability to watch a set of lesser known songs mixed among the crowd pleasers made it all the more special. So the audience have been warmed up. But they don't get a rest, there is no break for softer songs from Queens. 'No One Knows' is a song that people can recite word for word as well as imitate the instruments; the unison of the crowd doing this felt like being a member of a secret club and gave a great community feel among the flocks of people. The set gets progressively more intense and heavy, climaxing on finisher 'A Song For The Dead', teasing the people less familiar with the song three times into thinking it was over before bursting back into immensly satisfactory distortion.
The excitable audience were quick to begin chanting 'Fuck Kings Of Leon'...for reasons unknown (perhaps because they played the main stage last year?), which swiftly became 'Fuck Guns n' Roses', coaxing laughter from frontman and all-round cool guy Josh Homme. If anything makes a gig even better, it's slandering GNR before they've even played - and it happened more often than not.
Accept no imitations - exhausting, intense and unbeatable rock music at its finest. Queens Of The Stone Age exude a professionalism that undoubtedly shows they're the real deal. Paying homage to Nirvana having played the same stage years ago, this performance is another one for the history books.