As confirmed by their new “Catacombs Tour,” which kicked off Thursday, October 2nd on the Chicago Theatre, Queens of the Stone Age are at the moment obsessive about three issues: time, dying, and reinvention.
It is smart. Frontman Josh Homme has already confronted down a most cancers analysis and a latest separate well being scare that pressured him to cancel a portion of QOTSA’s 2024 tour and bear emergency surgical procedure. To not point out, the band has been rockin’ for nearly 30 years; each personally and artistically, Homme and the band are wrestling with actual notions of mortality and the decaying, uncaring nature of time.
Earlier this yr, such themes manifested of their live performance movie/stay EP Alive within the Catacombs, which noticed Queens of the Stone Age carry out an intimate stay set deep within the Parisian Catacombs (learn a first-hand account of that have in our cowl story with Homme). Now, the normally hard-rocking act has translated these acoustic, macabre vibes right into a stage present, one which transforms their ear-splitting rippers right into a smoky theater manufacturing of darkish people and desert rock.
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From a fan’s perspective, QOTSA’s “Catacombs” manufacturing begins effectively earlier than any of the band members step onto the stage. The theater setting in addition to the band encouraging viewers members to indicate up dressed of their best units a really particular tone. Coming into the Chicago Theatre, the place was already crammed with fog, as if we have been all about to participate in some ritual of resurrection.
After Paris Jackson’s opening set, the lights dimmed and a drone observe performed by way of the mains to reset the temper. After about 5 minutes of pressure constructing (respect for holding out for therefore lengthy), Homme slowly emerged from the viewers carrying a stool. He launched into the opening reduce, “Working Joke / Paper Machete,” alone with a microphone in a single hand and the only supply of sunshine within the different. Because the tune progressed, the remaining gamers emerged one after the other, till the stage was full with the band and their accompanying string gamers.
What adopted was deconstructed rock as theater, damaged into three acts: one mirroring the unique stripped-back Alive within the Catacombs set, one which expanded the sonic scope with new devices and the primary touches of electronics, and one which felt comparatively nearer to a standard rock present. (“Comparatively” being a key modifier, because the tracks remained completely rearranged to incorporate strings and horns.)