| Reviews |
Review by: Anthony Leegwater
They came, they saw, they rocked. They rocked harder than I could have imagined.
After an uninspiring DJ performance by a certain C-Minus (my grade's more like a D+), the Queens of the Stone Age ambled on to the 9:30 stage, tossed down their cigarettes, and got down to some rock. They opened with Monsters in the Parasol, one of my least favorite songs on Rated R, but by the end of it, I knew I was in for one king-hell of a show. Grohl had shed his shirt halfway through the song, Nick was prowling menacingly, and Josh was swaying and shrugging out the offbeat notes in that cool, offhanded style of his.
It was weird to finally see them on stage after all that anticipation....I'd been waiting for this show for months, and as it got closer, I kept expecting something to come along to ruin it all. The only
other time I had seen the Queens live was two years earlier at the same club, and I didn't know much about them at the time. I just knew them as former members of Kyuss who had put out a really wild album I was still digesting. I couldn't help but laugh to finally see them in the flesh after that wait: Nick, shirtless, with his black jeans sagging and Josh, taller and thinner than I remembered, in a baseball shirt with NEW YORK CITY on the front. The other Queens were a new sight: Grohl looking just like a expected, and Troy Van Leuwen looking exactly like a member of A Perfect Circle with his
long black hair.
The rumors are true: Grohl adds another level to the Queens live sound. Even familiar songs were deeper, darker, and harder than before. But that's only icing on the cake when you have Josh on guitar and Nick rumbling on his bass. They create the groove, Grohl fills it out.
I can't remember all the songs in the right order, but I can tell you there wasn't a bum one in the bunch. I have my favorites, because I have my favorites off their two discs, but ALL the old songs rocked...and hearing them live and singing along put the recorded versions to shame. The only negative thing I can say is that they didn't play If Only or In the Fade.
The new songs were darker and gloomier than the Queen's previous stuff, probably because of Mark Lanegan on vocals. He strolled out to stage earlier in the set than I was expecting and somehow managed to hide in the shadows in the middle of the stage. He clung to the mic with both hands, holding on tight as the band rampaged around him. Very cool indeed.
I was surprised to see that Josh was not playing his black Ovation GP. He played his sunburst model instead.
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Review by: Joe Warminsky/Washington Post
One of the loudest cheers Sunday night at the 9:30 club came when Dave Grohl, Alexandria resident and Foo Fighters frontman, scooted behind the drum kit. But Grohl's presence was merely a bonus for the hard-rock connoisseurs in the crowd -- they sought an intelligent pummeling by Queens of the Stone Age.
The Queens' songs are constructed in what might be called heavy-metal Esperanto: Anybody with even the slightest urge to headbang can find a riff or a rhythm to comprehend. Adding Grohl's eruptive sense of timing only clarifies the message. With him, the band sounds splashier and brighter, especially when guitarist and singer Josh Homme and bassist-singer Nick Oliveri leave aside their artier notions and lay down one of their thick, stoned-out grooves.
The other near-legend in attendance Sunday was former Screaming Trees singer Mark Lanegan, who performs on several cuts on the upcoming Queens disc "Songs for the Deaf." Shrouded in shadows even at the front of the stage, Lanegan appeared intermittently like a Ghost of Grunge Bands Past, and his whiskey-stripped voice contrasted well with Homme's mellower melodies and Oliveri's full-on hollering.
The shaggy-as-ever Grohl, who also plays on "Songs for the Deaf," showed little of the goofiness that characterizes his Foo Fighters videos. Shirtless and chomping on gum, he kept his head down for much of the two-hour gig. In his days behind Kurt Cobain in Nirvana, he was a flailing, enigmatic force of nature. With the Queens, he's a maestro.
Judging from the new material the band played (Homme and Oliveri didn't provide any song titles), "Songs for the Deaf" is probably a bit meatier-sounding than "Rated R." That's the Queens' 2000 breakout disc, which provided the evening's bookends: The '70s arena-rock energy of "Monsters in the Parasol" got everybody's horned-hands in the air, and "The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret" -- the band's biggest "hit" to date -- was the ideal skull-bobbing nightcap. |
| Pictures/Scans |
Pictures by: Rachel G.
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