QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE RULE
Alternative rockers at Bluesfest
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, BRODY DALLE RBC Royal Bank Bluesfest Claridge Stage Reviewed Tuesday Night
Queens of the Stone Age brought a blast of highly polished alternative rock to the Claridge Stage at RBC Royal Bank Bluesfest on Tuesday. On an evening when the rain played havoc with performance schedules, their delayed set was greeted by a magical vision in the sky: a double rainbow.
The phenomenon — plus the fact the rain had let up — seemed to put everyone in a good mood, on stage and off. Singer Josh Homme was full of praise for the festival, describing it as a wonderful day of music (partly because it included a show by his wife, Brody Dalle), and the crowd was exuberant as he constructed a killer concert.
Homme’s sweet but powerful voice was augmented by the solid work of his bandmates, Troy Van Leeuwen, Michael Shuman, Dean Fertita and Jon Theodore, who filled out the vocal harmonies while they were rocking out on their instruments.
For a heavy band, their music has no shortage of melodies, along with plenty of great singing.
Anticipation was high for this show, and the crowd, who had been waiting patiently through the rain, exploded into applause at the opening chords of You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar But I Feel Like a Millionaire. The crescendo of the hit song, No One Knows, came next, followed by the recent single, My God is the Sun, from their latest album, ... Like Clockwork, soon set off by the crunch of the decade-old Burn The Witch.
The groovy Smooth Sailing, marked by a prickly slide guitar motif, led into the harmonyladen Monsters and the deep waters of I Sat By The Ocean. Other songs from the newest album, including The Vampyre of Time and Memory and If I Had a Tail, fared well, although the crowd went most nuts for older hits like Little Sister, Make it Wit Chu and Sick Sick Sick.
Following an earlier lightning delay, the crowd was allowed back into the Black Sheep Stage site in time to see a cursory sound check for Homme’s aforementioned spouse, Brody Dalle, and her band.
With the sound more or less in place, the California-based group dive-bombed into a set of punk-edged tunes, displaying an urgency that comes with cramming it all into a shortened time slot.
Dressed in black, with her electric guitar slung low, the Australian-born singer-songwriter had about 45 minutes to make a splash, a mission that was accomplished with a sense of ferocity and a great selection of songs, many from her latest album, Diploid Love.
Rat Race and Don’t Mess With Me kicked it off before Dalle reached back to her Distillers days for Die on a Rope, Dismantle Me and, later on, Coral Fang. There was also a wiry cover of the Misfits’ Hybrid Moments.
Undeterred by the conditions, Dalle’s dusky voice ground through the low gears while her band cranked it out. She came up for air a couple of times only to check on the drenched crowd.
“You poor babies,” Dalle said at one point, apologizing for the weather. Her concern was unnecessary; fans had a great time seeing such a feisty show from the rocker mom.