From the depths to the light: Queens of the Stone Age, alive in Paris and Boston
By NICK TAVARES
STATIC and FEEDBACK Editor
On the first night in this theater, I was up in the balcony, close to the end of another long day, and any and all tiredness was nowhere near a thought in my brain.
Simply, I was letting the insane rhythms of “My God Is the Sun” pound into my brain. I was allowing the swagger of “Smooth Sailing” take me to another place. I was enthralled by the full-on righteous fury of “Paper Machete” and “Negative Space.”
Nothing I should have been feeling otherwise mattered, because I was watching Queens of the Stone Age just lay waste to the masses at Boston’s MGM Music Hall with a power and drive and groove that no other band on this level quite has at the moment.
That would have been enough, if I also hadn’t spent the past three days trapped in the world of Alive in the Catacombs, their just-released film captured last year in Paris’ Catacombs, with all the monstrous distortion and volume traded in for delicately plucked strings and eerie vocals flowing through those sacred halls.
The yin and yang of these two realities — deafening crunch and haunting silence — is still running through my brain. So let’s travel to the depths before reemerging to the surface.
By the time the lights went down on Alive in the Catacombs, with Josh Homme walking down one of its passageways and through the mist, I was fully mesmerized by the sounds they created in that hallowed space.
It begins with Homme, seated and clearly battling through pain, unaccompanied and singing the lyrics to “Running Joke,” an Era Vulgaris B-side, before being joined by the rest of the band and a string trio, morphing into the more modern “Paper Machete” and back to the original song, all while Homme explores the space of Paris’ depths. It’s not maudlin or morbid, it just sets the stage as the band travels through an EP-sized set curated specially for this space.
Nevermind other bands operating now — I can’t even fathom who else could pull this off at the moment — but through the spectrum of rock, the number of groups along the spectrum who could have pulled this off at any stage is minimal. Their ability to adapt to their overwhelming surroundings and reinvent these songs clearly shows the band is in a class of its own.
As the film moves on, the setting almost seems to warm as the band travels deeper into the depths, the song arrangement becoming more spare and revealing, accented by the subtle percussive sounds of chains and blocks of wood and feet along the paths. “Kalopsia” comes off almost ritualistic in its presentation, while “I Never Came” sees Homme entering and exiting the narrow corridors while the musicians line the walls. It’s hypnotizing and reveals a vulnerability like nothing else I’ve ever seen or heard. The band has always had range and a knack for reinventing themselves in acoustic settings, but this goes above and beyond even those moments.
And then, on stage in Boston, the chains were released and the band burned with a power like no other.
Wearing the same jacket he dons in Alive in the Catacombs, Homme returned to the stage on Tuesday night and began the slow, robotic reintroduction of their live sound with “Keep Your Eyes Peeled,” the opening track from …Like Clockwork that began this informal trilogy that was capped by 2023’s In Times New Roman… . All the menace and seething power was immediately present as the band methodically stomped through its paces, punctuated with Homme’s cries of “Wake me!” before the resulting explosion of carefully curated distortion.
“Keep Your Eyes Peeled” made its first appearance since the 2018 Villains tour, and it was hardly the only surprise. Fresh off its airing within the Catacombs, “Suture Up Your Future” reappeared in a proper set for the first time since the Era Vulgaris years.
But as the set carried on, the energy built up, with the crowd on the floor eventually whipping themselves in to several mosh situations merging into one nearly all-encompassing pit that took up the front half of the floor. It was furious release and looked like a gloriously good time down there.
And it had meaning. Homme has dealt with health problems that at time has kept him out of the studio and off the stage. In extending that main set by doing away with walking away and coming back on stage for two already scheduled songs, he addressed the moment:
“Honestly, you have no idea how much it means to us to see all you here tonight and tomorrow night. And these moments, they come and they go by so fast, so let’s just stay here together a little longer.”
The second night saw the band essentially flip the setlist, moving “No One Knows” towards the end and working in more Era Vulgaris songs with “Sick, Sick, Sick” and “Misfit Love” barreling their way into the show. And they went even deeper, dipping into the early days with “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret” and “The Sky Is Fallin’” coming out of the woodwork to lay waste to that crowd.
To be clear, this was fun, celebratory vibe throughout, with Homme leading a “Troy!” chant for guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen on the first night, and introducing every member of the band as “Troy Van Leeuwen” on the second. For as thundering as every one of their tracks can be, this is also a band that wants the crowd to dance, and they laid that heavy groove down on “Smooth Sailing” and “Emotion Sickness,” to name a couple. All the trials and tribulations were distant memories. These were occasions to get down and let it fly.
The culmination of that first night, with the “encore” illusion eschewed in favor of staying on stage for that extra 30 or so seconds, was the one-two punch of “Song for the Deaf” and “Song for the Dead,” the latter a long-time show-stopper for Queens, and its jerkey stop/start rhythms and chaotic energy are always more than welcome. But “Song for the Deaf,” another appearing in their set for the first time since 2018, had a demonic force that floated up and rushed out over the audience. Just this huge, enveloping sound that proved again that this band has a range and an energy and a power that just couldn’t exist within any other.
Queens of the Stone Age has survived lineup changes and turmoil and injuries and illness, and returned to the stage to deliver their particular spin on this heavy, heavy music. They clearly appreciated the opportunity. And everyone in attendance appreciated that they were able to be here once again to flatten us all.
E-mail Nick Tavares at nick@staticandfeedback.com