There’s something incongruous about seeing the dastardly, dangerous and formerly downright dirty Queens of the Stone Age in the shiny new arena which is the Glasgow Hydro. But despite its executive boxes, comfy seats, and overpriced beverages, the current and possibly mellower Queens, seem quite at home.
Large screens excite the crowd with an animated countdown to the show’s beginning, as the band take the stage with a swagger. It soon becomes apparent that the evening’s focus is on uneven latest album ‘…Like Clockwork,’ with nine of its ten tracks making the set. Its left-field opener ‘Keep Your Eyes Peeled’ is tonight’s gloomy and creeping introduction, before the rush of ‘Millionaire,’ ‘No One Knows’ and ‘My God Is The Sun’ get the crowd jumping.
‘Burn The Witch’ and ‘I Sat By The Ocean’ keep the tempo relatively high, but this is not a night for obvious song choices, with the band’s self-titled debut completely unrepresented, and some prominent singles absent. It seems as though we do, however, get an insight into Josh Homme’s secret dreams of a music hall crooning career with ‘Like Clockwork’ and later ‘The Vampyre of Time And Memory’ allowing both his falsetto and piano playing to come to the fore.
‘Smooth Sailing’ with its funk strut, followed by the casual groove of ‘Make It Wit Chu’ get Homme’s hips working, while ‘Better Living Through Chemistry’s stop-start structure and a capella mid-section disrupt the flow somewhat.
Main set closer ‘Go With The Flow’ sees an animated back drop of red interrupted by swimming black sperm, reprising the ‘Songs for the Deaf’ era logo as the crowd jump up and down and make themselves heard.
‘Feel Good Hit Of The Summer’ is similarly noisily received, but it’s ‘Song For The Dead’ as the final encore track, which really gets the pulses racing and heads nodding. Homme takes over the vocal recorded by Mark Lanegan as the band power through one of their heavier songs to leave a lasting impression. All in all, a good show, but all being well, perhaps they’ll return to a more intimate setting the next time around.
RT @isthismusic: Queens of the Stone Age: – Glasgow Hydro live review – http://t.co/ZtusuHKuVU @qotsa