Review: Queens Of The Stone Age bring The End Is Nero tour to Resorts World Arena in Birmingham

It’s a Sunday, but Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme wants us all to enjoy ourselves at Resorts World Arena as if it was a Saturday night.

After powering through the band’s opening few songs last night, he paused to talk to the 10,000+ fans packed inside to say, “I’m having a wonderful time and we’re going to dance around a little bit,” later adding, “it’s OK if tonight is just a ‘stoney Sunday’, I say that because I've been smoking a lot of weed today.”

Queens Of The Stone Age have long been the masters of riff heavy, ‘desert rock’, a sound which Homme and his band can effortlessly flip between heavy onslaughts and more brooding tracks, slow enough and with enough groove to get everyone out of their seats dancing along. Both were on offer in abundance in Birmingham.

To rewind a little, the rock heavyweights were in town on the latest leg of their UK tour, The End Is Nero, and were joined by London post-punk trio Deep Tan and Aussie punks, The Chats.

Outside of Queens, Homme has been through the mill in recent years, receiving treatment for cancer and also a divorce.

However, earlier this year the band returned with In Times New Roman…, their eighth album and their first for six years.

Despite that new record, Queens Of The Stone Age took fans back 20 years when they walked on stage, opening with Regular John from their 1998 debut, before launching into arguably their biggest hit, No One Knows.

A calculated bold move to play such an iconic track so early on, it’s a testament to the strength of the bands’ back catalogue that it’s even an option.

The early part of Queen’s set flipped between tracks from their new record including Emotion Sickness, Time & Place and Carnavoyeur which were nestled between deeper cuts from their back catalogue.

For this tour, Queens Of The Stone Age have crafted a triangular lighting set up, curating something visually which resembles part ‘Pyramid Stage’ and part ‘that White Stripes video’.

Lined with strips of LEDs, different colours were blasted out from behind the band throughout their set as members lurked in the shadows, with Homme moving in and out of ‘white’ light.

Does it compare to ‘shows’ this arena sees on a regular basis? Of course not, but Queens are also a band you suspect would be just as happy playing in front of a 30 square-meter piece of fabric with their name on.

The component parts of Queens Of The Stone Age make their music instantly recognisable.

Whether it’s Homme’s vocal style, his trademark guitar sound or the accompanying power of his fellow band mates.

Mid set each are introduced to huge cheers, with Homme then joking, “what if no one made a sound,” when introducing himself.

Attempting to make this happen, boos rang out across the arena as some fans cheered anyway, with Homme then joking “who are you booing, them or me”.

On their latest album, the ‘Queens’ sound is exemplified perfectly in Paper Machete.

“It’s a working-class town Birmingham, but you don’t have to be afraid to wiggle just because you work hard,” explains Homme, introducing the song.

From here on in, it’s virtually hits all the way. Burn The Witch finally gives the Resorts World crowd the chance to sing (or ‘whoa’) it’s bass hook back at the band while Make It Wit Chu gets those in the seats back on their feet dancing.

After briefly leaving the stage, Queens return for a four-song encore which includes an outing for the only track from their 2000 album Rated R, In the Fade, before incredible versions of Go With The Flow and A Song For The Dead brings their time in Birmingham to an end.

Next year, Queens Of The Stone Age will headline the Download Festival.

After thrilling fans at Resorts World and on their jaunt around the UK, it’s hard to imagine how they could be any better when headlining the UK’s biggest metal festival next summer.

Queens Of The Stone Age played:

Regular John

No One Knows

Smooth Sailing

My God Is the Sun

Emotion Sickness

If I Had a Tail

Time & Place

Carnavoyeur

The Way You Used to Do

The Evil Has Landed

Paper Machete

Burn the Witch

Make It Wit Chu

Little Sister

Encore:

In the Fade

Made to Parade

Go With the Flow

A Song for the Dead