Queens of the Stone Age @ The Moon

John Homme led the Queens of the Stone Age to The Moon last Thursday (Sept. 20) night.

Opening bands Dax Riggs and Howlin' Rain failed to catch my attention. (Sometimes you can just tell by the band name, right?)

Riggs had already started when I got there, half the band naked to the waist, and the singer doing his best Nickelback over the lighter-than-Nickelback backing band's sounds. It was painstakingly mindnumbing until the singer introduced one of the later songs -- "Ride the Death Wall" -- by simply uttering "Ride the Death Wall" right before going into the song. Then it got funny.

Howlin' Rain executed a performance of a less embarassing level, keeping the set short despite its long and rambling songs. The band emitted a strong "southern rock meets jam band" sound, playing out an instance where CCR met a jam-hungry Dave Matthews, or possibly ... Bad Company met Trey Anastasio. The result was that it wasn't nearly as painful to listen to as Dax Riggs, and it was short.

Queens of the Stone Age then took the stage after a brief time to show the first two bands how it's done. Homme ripped through a virtually banterless performance, pounding away with the band with no concern for dynamics. It was just loud.

I have a limited listening history with the Queens (amounting to the radio airplay plus one day of downloading a few songs) and the concert, albeit outright loud and rockin', did not persuade me to investigate further into the recordings. Heck, if I didn't get in for free, I wouldn't have paid $20 to see the band (and if I did pay that for whatever reason, I don't think I would have enjoyed it enough to rationalize the spending).

One of the key moments of the night came when the otherwise silent Homme started yelling after the completion of a song. He was upset about a pair of guys near the front of the stage who apparently were intruding on other people's good time. He said something along the lines of "I'm not playing another note until these guys are thrown out." And I was surprised, because less than five seconds following, a bouncer came over and started pointing and escorting the guys off.

I've been to a lot of shows and have put up with various levels of crap. I was glad these two were thrown out, because Homme had given them a warning about 10 minutes before, and they were still acting up. It was a sweet revenge against all the people who talk at movies, push in crowds, and are just, generally, jerks.

So, enjoy a song that was sadly not performed at The Moon:

Queens of the Stone Age - Make It Wit Chu

Move over to the band's MySpace for two songs that were performed -- "3s and 7s" and "Sick Sick Sick".