The main thing that hits you is just how good Josh Homme’s voice actually is. Now aged 52, a rock’n’roll stalwart who’s famously lived hard and fast, and with a recent life-threatening illness under his belt, the idea to strip everything back to a set’s most exposing parameters - solo, acapella, with nothing to hide behind - could be a fool’s game. And yet, remaining on stage for a final take on Long Slow Goodbye, his rich, note-perfect vocal cements an evening of superlatives.
Yes, Queens of the Stone Age are one of the century’s most celebrated rock bands. But away from the mosh pits and the frenzy, they’re also the genre’s most interesting songwriters, helmed by a sharp-suited mouthpiece who weaves between chatty hilarity, earnest declarations and an undeniable performance that could silence any doubters. Heading into the final straight of the year, tonight is a late contender for 2025’s best gig.
The show arrives near the tail end of the band’s Catacombs tour - an extrapolated show encompassing the short, stripped-back set they recently filmed in the skeleton-clad underbelly of the Parisian tunnels, but taking it far wider and further still. The storied walls of the Royal Albert Hall are the perfect setting - venerable and worthy of distinction, yet still small enough to mess with. Homme delights in doing just that, wandering through the aisles as security guards try to keep him in check: “I don’t need protection, I need affection,” he chastises.
Playing the Alive In The Catacombs film’s set in full at the start, lit only by a hand-held lamp that casts shadows across the eerie stage, spotlighting Homme’s face; the audience; his towering silhouette, we’re transported to an atmosphere that’s as close to the tunnels as is possible. The band gather at the front of the stage for maximum intimacy. A string section stabs and jabs through Kalopsia, giving its sneering ripostes to “cannibals” and “copycats in cheap suits” an added venom. “Is it wonderful?” Homme purrs in the chorus. Well, frankly yes.
The second act ramps things up even further as the stage is reconfigured, band and orchestral players around its perimeter, to allow Homme the maximum space to roam. He has a props table this time, with a cleaver that he delights in slicing through the air and draping across himself; dancing with a death instrument. Reworked deep cuts - Mosquito Song from Songs For The Deaf, and a three song hybrid of Someone’s In The Wolf, A Song For The Deaf and Straight Jacket Fitting - are played out with the drama and intensity of a gothic horror. The frontman, meanwhile, is in full actor mode, intoning poetic interludes between songs and leaning into the grandeur of the space.
If the third section resembles something more like a traditional Queens experience, Homme’s guitar back on as he returns to centre stage, then they still play it with pizazz, and a setlist tailored to the occasion. “You Got a Killer Scene There, Man…”, from 2005’s Lullabies to Paralyze is the ultimate slinking, sleazy prowl; The Vampyre of Time and Memory finds Homme taking to a piano adorned by candles and red wine, while leather-clad bassist Michael Schumann takes lead vocals for Auto Pilot - an oldie from the archive previously sung by former band member Nick Oliveri. There’s even a new song, Easy Street - perhaps their most melodically jaunty one in memory.
From start to finish, there’s not a misstep; the band perfectly pitching the setlist, tone and theatre of it all, and Homme finding the long-sought after middle ground between swaggering rock’n’roll charisma bomb and a grateful, decent bloke. He even references his former on-stage faux pas when addressing the front row; that, he notes, will not happen again. Then, for their last trick, a shadowy figure appears in the rafters to play the Hall’s grand, wall-shaking organ as Homme sings out his final notes. He turns around and it’s the Toast of London himself, Matt Berry: the perfect, mustachioed cherry on top.
It’s a stunning show from a superlative band who’ve proved themselves at the top of the rock canon time and time again. But as slick, theatrical showmen? It might well be their finest hour. God save these most gracious Queens.
