KICK OUT THE JAMS

Thursday, February 27, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Kick Out the Jams

Queens of the Stone Age, Feb. 22 at the Joint

Local rock radio may very well suck, but the listeners who turned out for the sold-out Queens of the Stone Age concert at the Hard Rock Saturday night proved themselves well-versed, singing and grooving along with the most powerfully destructive music heard inside a casino in a long time. There were no fans waiting just to hear the hit radio single, nor did anyone question the fact that Dave Grohl was not on drums. Instead, the audience, widely varying in age and number of visible tattoos, threw up the horns frequently and rocked out for the duration.

The band took the stage right on time with a sort of cocky swagger, as if its members were proud of the sell-out. Then the Queens raged into "You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire," the opening cut on their critically acclaimed 2002 disc Songs for the Deaf. Bassist Nick Oliveri's devilish scream and more devilish appearance ignited the stage from the opening beat.

Oliveri and singer/songwriter/guitar destroyer Josh Homme traded vocal duties for a half-dozen songs before Mark Lanegan of the Screaming Trees joined them and assumed the mantle of frontman. Queens of the Stone Age has always been a rotating circle of musicians bound together by Oliveri and Homme, and the band's live performance reflects that spontaneity while still keeping together a very, very tight set.

But Lanegan, who walked offstage after three songs and returned later for a few more later, seemed to take away from the band's driving performance. While Oliveri all out rocks his vocals, singing and screaming, Lanegan slows things with his sometimes-painful, gravelly baritone. Homme, meanwhile, floats a layer of almost trance-inducing vocals above the furious storm of the music, all while rocking an Elvisesque hip gyration and tearing into his guitar as if he can't get enough noise out of it. Even in an already underrated band, Homme is in incredibly underrated rock frontman.

The high points of the set, dominated by Songs for the Deaf material, were the early peak of "The Sky Is Falling" and two songs from earlier album Rated R, "Feel Good Hit of the Summer" and "The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret," all of which featured stunning guitar work. Drummer Joey Castillo, formerly of Danzig and the Misfits, admirably matched the power of Grohl's recordings as he pounded away mercilessly. Troy Van Leeuwen, late of A Perfect Circle, tossed in some great guitar accompaniment as well, particularly when he and Homme silenced the rest of the band and created a sonic phenomenon that could only be described as two guitars fucking each other.

All in all, by the time the Queens finally unleashed the new classic "No One Knows," the raucous crowd had already gotten much more than it came for.--Brock Radke