Queens of the Stone Age: Live Show Review
I was ready for the desert. The dust. The heat.
The firey guitar riffs and drums too heavy to beat. We journeyed down to the Budweiser Stage on September 9, 2017.
It’s new name after the Molson Ampitheatre. It’s a partially covered venue, with an open lawn suited for partying, seats, and general admission. That’s where I was. The venue holds up to 16,000 people and charges a bill for a tall can.
Rule of Thumb: If you have a weak bladder, do not - I repeat - do not drink the beer. You will leave your spot and have to go to the bathroom right before the headliner. Good luck getting back in without looking like a total jerk.
We lay in the pit before show time. Royal Blood opened for them with coasting rock n roll that paved the way for Queens to come thrashing through. They’re a two-piece band and create enough sound to blow your ears off. The lead singer’s vocals are in synergy with his guitar. Together, they’re like big combat boots stomping in muddy puddles of water. The drummer is the lightning in the storm they create on stage together. A sure-fire opener for the dry desert daze we were about to experience.
It’s always hard to really remember when the show actually begins. You stand there waiting and waiting for the people you came to see go on. The anticipation kills me every time. But then the lights go out and so does your soul. And processing a Josh Homme entrance is needing to process the soul.
Dude is a desert deity. Plays his guitar like it’s a snake with a burning hot cigarette steaming out of disgruntled face, while the sweat of his brow greases his blonde silky hair and he sings to you with such disgust and contentment at the same time about the villains that you know are inside of you.
At 6’3”, he steps foot on the stage and the trance is set. A literal beast of rock. We follow his trails through the desert darkness and find it buried inside of us. The set was perfection. Covering a lot of old hits and equally great new ones. At one point, he told us to throw the inflatable ball that was bouncing around to him. Pulling out a pocket knife, he stabs it and says “I didn’t come here to play with your f*cking balls.” You don’t mess around with Josh Homme.
I was in the thick of it. Head banging so hard and shoving the burly men around me. I was getting odd looks but little girls can mosh too. The heat of the sound is enough to make you want to shake it off but you can’t because it’s burning inside. So you stand there and let the sand storm hit you.
I asked some dudes to lift me up so I can sail along the crowd. But beware of mosh pits.
Rule of thumb: Never crowd surf over a mosh pit. The moshers have no regard for what’s going on above them, and therefore, you will plummet to your muddy death.
I could see Josh at the corner of my eye and I felt his gaze. I felt as if I could just be launched right at him and he’d slurp me up with his snake tongue.
It wasn’t until the end. “Sick Sick Sick” into “Songs for the Dead” is a set up for spontaneous combustion. I blacked out. The two songs just melted together like a final farethewell.
And by the end of it, I felt like I had hugged a cactus.
