The Queens of the Stone Age brought their searing sound of big drums and bigger guitars to the 9:30 club on Sunday in support of their third major studio release, "Lullabies to Paralyze."
This marks the first major tour without co-founder and former bassist Nick Oliveri, who was kicked out of the band for undisclosed reasons by fellow co-founder and vocal frontman Josh Homme. Sunday's concert, however, indicated that Oliveri's loss has not affected the fierce guitar riffs and Homme's haunting vocals that have become a staple of this popular hard-rock band.
Opening the show was Throw Rag, an L.A. punk band with a penchant for screaming lyrics and stripping singers. While it was difficult to understand the band's screeching songs, its heavy beats set the mood for the headlining act, and the scene of a fat man in a black thong scooping sweat off his armpit was difficult to turn away from.
The Queens proved to have a flair for the dramatic, as a translucent, stage-length curtain was drawn over the stage before the show began amid the soft murmurs of the children's song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf." This led to a stark transition when the curtain was drawn and the Queens were revealed as they frenetically attacked their instruments while Homme chanted the lyrics from the first single from "Lullabies," "Someone's in the Wolf." The show hardly slowed from this opening crescendo as the band kept the audience involved with the hit single "No One Knows" from its 2002 CD "Songs for the Deaf." This rendition of the popular radio song involved a lengthy instrumental bridge and helped spawn the obligatory and seemingly clich? mosh-pit that would persist throughout the show.
The rest of the almost two-hour set saw the Queens alternate among songs from "Lullabies," "Songs for the Deaf" and their 2000 release, "R," with few chances for either the band or the packed crowd to catch a collective breath. "Burn the Witch," and "In My Head" were two noteworthy new offerings, which allowed a cacophony of harmonizing voices to shine behind Homme. The only major event that broke the action occurred during the playing of "Go With the Flow," when a concert-goer threw a beer bottle and a T-shirt at Homme in quick succession. Homme became embroiled in an angry expletive-laced tirade toward the fan, and his yelling between lyrics at the offending patron ceased the song's flow.
This minor confrontation was quickly forgotten with the playing of "A Song for the Dead." It featured multiple fake stops and building guitar riffs that left the crowd frenzied in its wake.
The night was capped by a dueling guitar sequence between Homme and bandmate Troy Van Leeuwen that, upon its completion, led to the hysterical musing by Homme that the two of them were only doing that to compensate for their "small cocks." Sunday's concert proved that the loss of an integral bandmate hasn't diminished Homme's distinctive sound that pushes the band. To pull that off might not require a large endowment, but it certainly requires some large metaphorical balls.
