Queens Of The Stone Age at The O2 | Review

Queens Of The Stone Age at The O2 Dublin Sunday 18th November 2013

You could cut the excited energy in The O2 with a knife. A cinematic countdown clock appears onstage fixing the attention of the crowd as Queens Of The Stone Age saunter out to a swell of “ten, nine, eight,” from the crowd. On cue they unleash their trademark brand of metal riffage with You Think I Ain’t Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire. The significant girth and volume of the pulsating sound instantly reaches what Garth Algar would consider to be “the appropriate volume” and the sonic assault on the senses is joined by a two-pronged visual spear of truly captivating and blinding lighting and equally impressive visual sequences. Frontman Josh Homme’s vocals are surprisingly full-bodied, crisp and pitch-perfect throughout the performance and he manages to more than hold his own when interpreting songs originally performed by Mark Lanegan and former bassist Nick Oliveri.

No One Knows keeps QOTSA’s feet firmly on the accelerator as the band successfully deliver the opening brace of tracks from their career-defining album ‘Songs For The Deaf.’ Just two songs in and Queens Of The Stone Age have already managed to create an atmosphere that indicates this could be the gig of the year.

Burn The Witch displays that Homme and Co are far more than mere metal show ponies laying down a classic blues riff with pedal steel guitar parts and call-response vocals. Burn The Witch further showcases Homme’s vocal range which moves pristinely between falsetto and baritone registers, while the band’s breakthrough 2000 single The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret still maintains its instantaneous ferocity and freshness some thirteen years later.

“This song is about LSD” says Homme introducing Monsters In The Parasol and LSD was reflected not only in the Naked Lunch-esque lyrics but also in the multi-camera infra-red visuals which accompanied it. By the time …Like Clockwork concludes, the initial gig of the year palpitations are all but confirmed thanks in no small part to a stunning vocal performance by Josh Homme. The audience was captivated by the palpable fragility and heartfelt delivery from the first syllable of the piano-led verses and all the way through the prog rock interludes.

It isn’t all perfection though, as the scratchy Misfit Love seems to instantaneously suck the energy out of the room despite the band visibly enjoying it and doing their utmost to bring the crowd along for the ride. The R&B-style riffs of Smooth Sailing and the lyrical bluntness of Make It Wit Chu add a considerable dose of sex to the chemistry set, with images of naked sirens floating around the Earth backgrounding the latter.

Better Living Through Chemistry is one of the unexpected highlights of the night; the multifaceted track which bounces between atmospheric Eastern-tinged bass-led verses, psychedelic prog rock vocal refrains and full on guitar bombardiering. As with many of the songs the band give themselves a large scope for improvisation within the set structure of the song and Better Living Through Chemistry makes great use of this leeway.

A three-song encore of The Vampyre Of Time And Memory, I Appear Missing and A Song For The Dead acted as a wonderful end to the performance capturing the three main facets of Queens Of The Stone Age in the process.

The Vampyre Of Time And Memory once again illustrates Josh Homme’s more sensitive side as he takes to the piano for this prog rock ballad with shades of Pink Floyd and Wings-era McCartney.

I Appear Missing brings us through a dark almost otherworldly soundscape with psychedelic rock mirrored by impressive animated visuals of the song’s official video which see a partially mummified business man float to the heavens like a petrified Icarus only to fall to Earth as the band yield a spiralling crescendo of psychedelic white noise. After all “it’s only falling in love because you hit the ground”.

A Song For The Dead meanwhile illustrates why Queens Of The Stone Age have been rock music’s leading providers of epic riffs for over fifteen years, thanks to its pulsating rhythm figures, relentless drumming and dastardly vocal refrains which create a black hole of moshing that sends people flying around like they were paper airplanes and for some it must have felt like they were playing death-match quidditch as their feet didn’t touch the ground for unnatural periods of time.

You could argue that other bands have performed better in Ireland this year, but add in a truly stunning light-show, beautifully rendered visual accompaniments and Josh Homme’s masterful vocal and virtuoso guitar display and you can’t help but conclude that Queens Of The Stone Age in The O2 was simply the highlight of the gig-going calendar in 2013. “We didn’t wanna fall in love with you, Dublin, but you went and made us do it” said Homme offering a rare platitude to the crowd, but in reality it was the crowd who were spellbound yearning for twenty-one more songs to go with the ones they’d just put their bodies on the line for.