Live: Queens of the Stone Age

20th November

Phones4U Arena

9/10

Queens of the Stone Age have done a lot of touring with their new album, …Like Clockwork.But if they were fed up of playing I couldn’t tell, and we’re certainly not fed up of hearing. Starting off with an old-time film-style countdown of sixty quite exciting seconds, Queens of the Stone Age began with ‘You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar. But I Feel Like a Millionaire’ and from the start everyone was jumping.

They filled the set with tracks from their newest effort, the hearing of which instigated equal delight in the audience as older songs such as ‘Burn the Witch’ with its stomping, glam rock guitar. With an audacious amount of infectiously sing-a-long-able riffs, Queens of the Stone Age are talented song writers, with, as Josh Homme commented in a recent interview, songs for both the boys and the girls.

The new ‘I Appear Missing’ came embellished, and urged the crowd to spin along with the stretched out final bars which rolled further than on record, and the ridiculously catchy ‘No One Knows’ had plenty going on to dance to. When the deliciously sleazy ‘Make It Wit Chu’ was played, it was slow dance heaven. Despite the presence of so many people, the purring vocals made it feel entirely personal. As a front man, Homme is one sexy bastard with plenty of charisma to make a two hour set seem like ten minutes and leave everyone wanting more.

Initially worrying was the venue due to its size and the presence of advertising banners all over the shop, yet the choice was inevitable and Queens of the Stone Age had no problem filling the huge space with sound. They have the complexity of song writing which is at once glam, scuzzy, melodious, and trippy, with little references like ‘Kalopsia’s’ shoo-wop from an old Flamingoes record, that means they could play in a fucking bin and I’d love it. I won’t get fed up of hearing them any time soon.