Daily Iowan

July 26th, 2007

Sweat in a dome

Queens of the Stone Age is not an arena band.

This fact became much clearer to me after sweating, elbowing, screaming, and head-banging Monday night at the Queens concert here in Bakersfield.

I first saw the Queens two years ago at Allstate Arena in Chicagoland. The band played with Nine Inch Nails, and while the Queens show was great, it was obvious that NIN frontman Trent Reznor’s solo act was more suited to the mega-space.

The anonymity and disconnect of a big arena complement Reznor’s own slightly off-putting personality and angry electronica. You don’t want to talk to your fans, Trent? You’d rather we just look at the cool video screen or your muscled biceps? That’s just fine, we wouldn’t expect anything else.

Queens, on the other hand, has an appeal that has always been more raw energy and charisma than projection screens and props. Its kind of rock is meant to be intimate and skin-on-skin sweaty, and it comes across clearer when the audience has the chance to get close and really connect with the band.

That’s why Monday’s show was perfect. It was at The Bakersfield Dome, a middle-tier venue in town that also regularly hosts boxing — it’s the ideal mix of not-trying-too-hard trendy and redneck dirt.

The building is just what it sounds like — a round room covered with a dome — and its construction vaguely resembles a grain silo or a barn. There’s plenty of floor space, and the seats curve in a semi-circle around the stage, which is clearly visible from anywhere. The floor is dirty, sticky, and it reminded me of a wrestling mat. The building is old, it reeks of sweaty history, and you can barter with the bartender to get a $5 Budweiser for $4.

It’s just right for the Queens’ brand of muddy stoner-rock.

The opening band was Los Angeles-based duo The Gasoline Angels.

I listened to them on MySpace before the show, and I thought the Angels fairly mellow grunge sounded like a good match for the Queens. But in person, not so much. The group, which consists of brothers Karim and Kasey Chatila, played a short set, just 40 minutes, and I don’t think the crowd once felt tempted to dance. They were just…boring. That’s all. Two people on stage — one brother played drums and keyboards, the other sang and played a seriously lackluster guitar — is just not enough.

So when the Queens took over, fronted by the red-headed Josh Homme, fresh off a knee surgery and limping on stage using a cane, the crowd was more than ready. They opened with “Do it Again,” a track from their breakthrough 2002 album, Songs From the Deaf.

It’s one of the group’s trademark sex songs (there’s at least one on every album), and it was a brilliant choice. Those familiar with the group immediately recognized it, and for those who didn’t, the song features a “hey” chant that anyone can pick up in seconds.

“Do it Again” also set the overall tone for the concert — sex, baby, and we like it dirty and hazy. The Queens has always been a true rock band when it comes to the drugs. Homme admits to having battled an addiction to painkillers, and his early work practically sweats Vicodin and cocaine. And lately he’s been really pumping it up in the sex category, evidenced by the band’s choice of songs for the show. They broke out “Skin on Skin” from Lullabies to Paralyze (2005) and “Make It Wit Chu” from their new album, Era Vulgaris.

And as part of the encore, they banged out “Feel Good Hit of the Summer” from Rated R (2000), the song’s drug-chants interspersed with Homme whispering, “Dance like you f***,” and making, ahem, creative hand gestures.

Such interaction is only possible when you can actually see your audience. I was in the front, anchored to my savior, a big man in a yellow shirt, and I could practically feel Josh Homme’s eyes connecting with mine as he swung his hips and moaned the chorus to “Make it Wit Chu.” And the venue was so moderately sized that you could get the same jolting effect from anywhere on the floor — you wouldn’t necessarily need to be squished up against all those dripping bodies. Unless you wanted to, of course.

What’s really great is that the Queens actually look like a band that enjoys what its doing. The guys aren’t just out there to play the show and get back on the road (just ask me about the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ attitude in that area). Instead, they come back on stage to play for 20 more minutes when the audience is enthusiastic. They thank the crowd and make meaningless-but-loyalty-inducing small talk. For example, when the band came back on for an encore — they played for nearly two hours total — Homme accidentally strummed the wrong chord when transitioning from “Burn the Witch” to “Feel Good.” He joked about f-ing up, teased his bandmates, and explained why he was hobbling around with a cane. I could hear it all. I felt like I was in on a secret — along with every other perspiring body packed in the space.

Oh, and the music — it sounded great live. Better than on the album, especially the new tunes like “Battery Acid” and “Misfit Love.” Homme carried the show easily with his magnetic stage presence, and the rest of the band followed nicely. You couldn’t hear them missing bassist Nick Oliveri, the other original group member who Homme fired in 2004. Not even a little bit.

The band’s current tour is full of mid-level venues like the Dome. When Queens hits Cedar Rapids on Aug. 3, it’ll play not at the U.S. Cellular Center, but rather the Hawkeye Downs Fair Grounds. And the group recently announced additional tour dates that include several Montana locations. It appears the Queens has already figured out what I just realized: It isn’t an arena group. The band fits much better in a smaller, more intimate space where its enthusiasm can transfer to the fans.

“We always get to play L.A. and New York and Chicago and London…There are people (in smaller markets) that aren’t spoiled like the bigger audiences. We just want to play to people that are psyched,” guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen told the Montana newspaper Great Falls Tribune.

More power to ya, Queens. If I had my way, venues like the Dome, general admission floor tickets, and audience interaction would be a mandatory component of all rock shows.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 4:36 pm and is filed under Arts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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