Live Review - Queens Of The Stone Age

Queens Of The Stone Age, Manchester Arena, 20th November 2013

Thanks for this live review go to Andy Brown.


One thing’s for sure, it’s all downhill from here. Queens Of The Stone Age filled the Manchester Arena with screeching electronic guitar. The venue was huge. The crowd was huge. The noise was huge. QOTSA did not disappoint last night. There is one word that can be used to describe how exactly they played their set. It is a word you do not want to hear, because it is so overused. This word is overused by guffawing 14-year-olds whilst plugged into the ‘net at the expense of going outside, and overused by meaningless capitalist comparison-website advertisements in an attempt to be down with said 14-year olds. Sadly, it is often overused in the great art of music reviewing. However, there is simply no other word to use to describe QOTSA’s music, light show and style.

It was epic.

It was epic in the true sense of the word. From the shameless 'Millionaire' with shouts of "Gimme some more" from the start, to the perhaps inappropriate 'Feelgood Hit of the Summer' to finish, QOTSA ascended and descended epically.   

They ascended into desert-influenced progressive rock throughout. Tracks straight of their latest album, '…Like Clockwork' read like progressive masterpieces. Extended and open-ended, these cacophonous melodies dragged you by the earlobes into the centre of a parallel world, overwhelmingly plagued with a dazzling melancholy.  The eponymous '…Like Clockwork' and the penultimate track of the album 'I Appear Missing' stood out as tracks that would not feel out of place in any Prog Rocker’s library.  

The already intense 'I Appear Missing' was augmented perfectly by an animated art-film depicting a raggedy man’s adventures with a daemonic crow. It worked so well. During the gig I lost almost all sense of time and place I was drawn into whatever crevice of Joshua Homme’s mind that particular episode came from. To be fair on Joshua, he did warn us "…the doctor gave me a lot of drugs so I feel great. Sorry if things get a little bit weird"

But don’t worry,old-school QOTSA fans, they descended into heavy rock, just like you thought they would. The second song they played ended the gentlemanly sitting-down in the seated area. 'No One Knows' elicited the orgy of destruction that you’d expect. They attempted to pull the arena down with Stone-Age classics like 'Little Sister', 'The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret' and Sick, Sick, Sick'.

We may have journeyed through the sleet and snow of the Pennines in November, but QOTSA had only been journeying through the desert. They played their unique rock music to the explosive beat with a light show to match. This reviewer was transported from rainy Salford to the depths of the California desert, with the rhythm of the shifting sands and the wailing of those losing their minds.