Queens Of The Stone Age have been on a whirlwind world tour since last year supporting their latest album “Villains” but it all came to a finale last night in Perth as the band celebrated the end of the tour with one big show to cap it all off.
Opening for the night which is no easy task given the scale of the venue size and show, local Aussie band The Chats had the dubious task of giving the early punters some entertainment to start things off and boy did they entertain! With both a punk attitude and musical style with a quintessential Aussie flavor thrown in for some true blue authenticity, the Queensland trio brought some humour and catchy tunes to the crowd who weren’t sure if this was serious or all a pisstake.
With songs like “Pub Feed”, “Smoko”, “Bus Money” and some reference to a local character named Billy Backwash, it all seemed very bogan borrowing from typical Aussie life which funnily enough everyone definitely could relate to. Regardless it was a fun show and the band sounded great, a nice surprise early on for sure.
Blues guitarist CW Stoneking followed up next with a completely different kind of show. Going away from the punk stuff, this was more of a swing jazz, 40’s rockabilly, latin festive influenced blues rock complete with horns and gospel-like backup singers. Again another surprise that you wouldn’t normally pick for a support act on Queens Of The Stone Age but there was something to the whole style and attitude of the performance that you could see being part of the QOTSA world.
By the time the band had gotten through half of their set, the crowd was building up quite strong packing the arena out and enjoying the rhythmic musical pallete that is CW Stoneking. I can’t say I was familiar with the music and it’s not normally something I would get into but I certainly can’t fault the show and it got the fans moving about which is the end game of any good show.
Of course the main attraction tonight was the legendary Queens Of The Stone Age led by the enigmatic Josh Homme who remains the only original member of the band. It’s been years since I had actually seen these guys live and so the lineup, despite being fairly consistent for over a decade now, was new to me but that didn’t change the fact that the band as a collective fired on all cylinders from the get-go.
Kicking off with a classic rather than a newbie in the form of “Someone’s In The Wolf”, QOTSA were sounding slick which makes sense given that they’ve had the entire world tour to work on the set. This final show didn’t necessarily give the impression that this was the final show of the tour performance wise but you could tell there was a slight restlessness and an anxious feeling to go out with a bang at the same time. “If I Had A Tail” from the previous album “Like Clockwork” made an early appearance with it’s groovy beat but the staple “Monsters In The Parasol” got the crowd going as the classic hit the stage. It sounded a little different in tonight’s performance and there could of been any number of factors for that – having being played so many times there’s a need to keep things fresh, or simply just having a different sound now than the original recording – either way it came out fantastic and gave the eager punters in the pit area something to mosh to.
The stage production was simple yet eloquent and catered to a party vibe, strobe lights and white poles with neon fluro flashes sticking up in various places on the stage floor gave the band members a chance to dance around kicking the poles and generally making a mess up there. It looked fun and clearly the US rockers took advantage of at every given opportunity. Soundwise things were on point though I must admit the use of a third guitar did at times drown out the main riffs but it was a minor flaw in an otherwise crystal clear sound.
New material from the latest album “Villains” popped in and out of the set, the dance grooves of “Feet Don’t Fail Me” and the poignant “Domesticated Animals” were certainly highlights but it was always the older material that drew the most interest such as “No One Knows”, “Make It Wit Chu”, the catchy “Little Sister” and main set closer “Go With The Flow” off the brilliant “Songs For The Deaf” album. Whenever I hear that song I always think of Dave Grohl on the drums but Jon Theodore behind the kit tonight did a fantastic job in keeping to the songs.
There were a few songs that one would think would of made the set, “Auto Pilot”, First It Giveth” and “Feel Good Hit Of The Summer” would seem like staples still but given the size of their back catalogue now, sadly there has to be tracks that need to be cut and there was some absolute classics that didn’t make it tonight. Not a bad problem to have I suppose and you can’t please everyone.
Only one song made the encore, “A Song For The Dead” and it ended as quickly as it came on but the band stepped it up for that last song in every way possible, including the volume which was cranked past 11. It was the only way to end things and as the band walked out with Josh making sure to push over as many lights, speakers, stands etc as possible on the way out to close out the world tour, we were reminded once again why QOTSA are one of the top draws in music still to this day.
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Photos by Linda Dunjey Photography
