Live Review: Queens of the Stone Age

Live Review: Queens of the Stone Age

Time To Rock Harder: Aidin Vaziri | Just a week ago, Queens of the Stone Age had to cancel its Minneapolis show because leader Josh Homme was running a delirium-inducing fever. Two months earlier, the group scrapped its European tour because he was coughing up blood in Paris. And that was before guest vocalist Mark Lanegan unexpectedly quit, citing exhaustion. By the time the band arrived at the Fillmore on Saturday, you'd think, it was either going to walk out onstage and just keel over or, best-case scenario, vomit out of its eye sockets. Yet for a band that seems to thrive on chaos (its signature song is 2000's "Feel Good Hit of the Summer," with the chorus "Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol! Co-co-co-co-co-cocaine!"), its live show was disappointingly free of third-degree burns and goat sacrifices. The whole thing, in fact, was rather horrifyingly professional, with the band pretty much just standing there, barely uttering a word to the audience or even going so far to lift a leg up to a monitor, with a boring light show on loan from Tori Amos. The music was loud and intense and all, and the part where Homme said, "F -- Huey Lewis" was almost funny, but for a band that practically came back from the dead to stand on that stage, it was kind of a downer. Perhaps Queens of the Stone Age hasn't suffered enough.