Belvedere Jehosophat - Saturday, 14 February 2004
Josh Homme is — seriously, now! — the most rockinest man in rock and the most sexinest in sex!
He walked on stage wearing jeans and a black muscle shirt with a cigarette dangling from his lips. After approaching the microphone he tossed the cigarette over his shoulder as if its presence suddenly bothered him - almost as if he wasn't the one who lit it and put it in his mouth in the first place. He is virility personified. I am but a wilted sunflower.
And this is all I have to say on the topic.
I had previously seen Queens of the Stone Age at last year's Big Day Out. I wasn't overly impressed, partly because my distance from the band made every song sound like sludge but mostly because I hadn't yet bought Songs for the Deaf. I sung my praises of that CD earlier and I'm sticking by them.
I trust that I don't have to expound on how owning the CD of the band that you are about to watch and how having, for want of a better word, hands-on-experience with the songs makes the concert more palatable, do I?
The biggest surprise was with the vocalists. Now, I knew what Josh Homme sounded like, but I was under the impression that Mark Lanegan had the screechy vocals and that Nick Oliveri had the raspy bluesy vocals. I don't know why I thought this, but I did.
Whichever way, they both handled the vocal duties admirably, though I did find the sudden appearance of Lanegan slightly disconcerting. He just walked on stage, stood there while he sang his songs and walked off when he was done.
I mean, I guess there was something kind of rockin' and sexin' about him too but it was different to that of Homme; it had a nice junkie edge to it, a sheen, even.
The songs were mostly taken from the new album and, in some cases, slightly reworked. I refer almost exclusively to the musical segue that occurred in the middle of No One Knows.
Outside of this it was a pretty straight set with no real surprises.
The Enmore is a terrible venue, too loud and with the lingering smell of burnt-out hippy. Consequently, insofar as the noise is concerned, earplugs are almost a must. Subsequently, insofar as the noise is concerned, the sound was flattened and muffled.
Outside of that small complaint it was a great gig.
Also, The Distillers opened for the night. They are not the saviours of punk rock — they were uninteresting at best.
I went with my friend. She's a pretzel.
peace and love and happiness