REVIEW: Queens Of The Stone Age At Logan Campbell Centre

The first time I ever saw Queens of the Stone Age play live was at an early incarnation of the now-huge Coachella festival, held in the band’s stomping ground the Palm Desert. The sun was slowly setting as the evening unfolded, the desert cold creeping in as the scene happening onstage grew more chaotic by the second. It was a truly magical moment, and frontmen Joshua Homme and Nick Oliveri were in killer form.

Fast forward a few years and the new-look Queens – most importantly minus Oliveri – are playing a more than solid set at Auckland’s Logan Campbell Centre, and the audience is also lapping it up. Things have changed though, and Homme almost feels like an elder statesman leading a band of rather talented musicians through the band’s hits, as opposed to a key member of a groundbreaking band unleashing a truly fucking exciting new sound. There are more than a few nods to the past however, beginning with opening number Regular John from the band’s very first album, now in the process of a long overdue re-release. The crowd seemed excited but more than a little bemused as more early numbers were rolled out, and I’m guessing the majority had come to QOTSA via the breakout album Rated R and were really hanging in there for the hits. And they got the hits, singing along wildly to the likes of The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret, Go With The Flow and an almost-happily chaotic No One Knows, before the set ended and we finally got some room to breathe.

When they come back on for an encore it’s almost like the band had just done a round of shots backstage, with the looseness and element of danger so common to the Queens of old finally creeping into the mix. This was my favourite part of the evening and one that left the crowd screaming for more after the 80-minute show finally came to and end. It was reported that several band members fell ill with food poisoning the day after the show, which could have explained the subdued nature of much of their delivery. It was a great night but here’s hoping that QOTSA’s cojones didn’t disappear with Oliveri forever.

By Helene Ravlich