According to a recent press release from Matador records, Queens of the Stone Age singer, multi instrumentalist, and visionary, Josh Homme,\u201chad dreamt of staging a QOTSA performance in the Catacombs since his first visit nearly 20 years ago,\u201d but Paris had never allowed any artist to play within the Catacombs \u2013 until 2024, when QOTSA became the first and only act to be granted the honor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On their decision, the Paris Catacombs shared via Matador\u2019s release:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGoing underground and confronting reflections on death can be a deeply intense experience. Josh seems to have felt in his body and soul the full potential of this place. The recordings resonate perfectly with the mystery, history, and a certain introspection, notably perceptible in the subtle use of the silence within the Catacombs.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n As account of both the relative physical remoteness and deep spiritual significance of the recording location, Alive At The Catacombs<\/em> is stripped of QOTSA\u2019s usual heavy fuzz, resulting in \u201c[the band] at their most intimate, yet surrounded by literally millions of human remains\u2014\u2019the biggest audience we\u2019ve ever played for,\u2019<\/em> says Joshua Homme.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n To promote their documentary film, Alive in the Catacombs<\/em> (June 5th)\u2014which depicts the aforementioned descent and performance in the catacombs of Paris)\u2014and accompanying EP (June 13th), Queens of The Stone Age embarked on a mini-US midsummer tour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This tour is also part of QOTSA\u2019s greater extended The End Is Nero<\/em> tour, supporting their most recent studio album, In Times New Roman. <\/em>Released in 2023, the album\u2019s promotional cycle was prolonged by issues with Homme\u2019s health, which forced the mid-tour cancellation of twenty-one shows in 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Beside Homme, the band\u2019s lineup is rounded out by Jon Philip Theodore on drums, Michael Shuman on bass, Troy Van Leeuwen on guitar and keyboard, and Dean Fertita, also on guitar and keyboard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They arrived at Kembra Live! on June 17th, the midpoint of their tour and played a \u2018Rizzler sizzler\u2019 of a show. The night prior to their Columbus set, the group were introduced to America\u2019s sweetheart, Christian \u201cThe Rizzler\u201d Joseph, by comedian Theo Von at a Nashville comedy club in a meeting which indubitably wormed its way the band\u2019s performance the following night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With temperatures soaring on the hottest and muggiest day thus-far of 2025, this was not a show for the weak. Nevertheless, thousands of fans braved the sweltering conditions for hours before the doors opened, with last year\u2019s cancellations serving as a catalyst for a deeper need to be as close to the band as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Queens of The Stone Age opened with 2004\u2019s mechanical \u201cLittle Sister,\u201d capturing the crowd from the jump. With the group\u2019s impressive catalogue, the night\u2019s treasure trove setlist especially showed off the band\u2019s range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the first half of the night, the band soared right into a couple tunes from their 2013 work \u2026Like Clockwork<\/em>. They began with\u201cSmooth Sailing,\u201d then \u201cMy God is the Sun,\u201d into \u201cI sat by the Ocean,\u201d and finally \u201cIf I had a Tail\u201d. Shuman shone especially bright through the moody, dramatic basslines that make this album many fans\u2019 favorite. Nestled between these hits were a couple more from In Times New Roman<\/em>, including \u201cEmotional Sickness,\u201d \u201cCarnavoyeur,\u201d and the addictive \u201cPaper Machete.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The performance of \u201c3\u2019s & 7\u2019s\u201d near two-thirds of the way through the show, brought an onslaught of large-scale moshing and crowdsurfing. Next, the band cooled it down with two more tunes from Era Vulgaris<\/em>: first the broodingly low \u201cSuture up My Future,\u201d followed by the blissful, semi-Rolling-Stonesian hit, \u201cMake it wit chu.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The unexpected highlight of the night came with \u201cYou Can\u2019t Quit Me Baby,\u201d from the group\u2019s 1998 self-titled debut album, which featured an extended version of the already lingering outro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Usually a crew-cut-queen, Homme\u2019s hair stepped out with a tight buzzcut as The Kills\u2019 Allison Mosshart took shears to the singer\u2019s hair in Kemba Live!\u2019s green room earlier that night. On stage, the singer channeled his inner Clairo, both by drinking red wine out of a glass onstage, as well as through his overall quiet, nonchalant demeanor. The stage presentation\u2014 simple silky pieces of fabric hung from the rafters and flowing in the wind in light\u2014 also distantly recalled that of Clairo\u2019s Charm<\/em> tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the night\u2019s end drew near, rather than feigning goodbye only to grace the crowd with an encore that everyone knew was coming, Homme cut through such theatrics by announcing that he would stay on stage for a few more songs.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n These remaining songs came as no surprise, as the band were yet to play several mega-hits from 2002\u2019s Songs for the Deaf,<\/em> where Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and Nirvana were the band\u2019s studio and touring drummer.<\/em> Despite his notorious predecessor, Theodore (himself of The Mars Volta, Royal Trux, and Bright Eyes Fame) was a treat to watch live on the night\u2019s final three particularly energetic songs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And while the band forewent tradition by fully incorporating the encore, Van Leeuwen\u2019s first single-piano-note strike on \u201cGo with the flow,\u201d served as an initiation signal for a longstanding tradition as fans began to form a churning center in the pit. By the end of megahit \u201cNo One Knows,\u201d the rotating swarm had grown into a formidable \u2018wall of death,\u2019 which broke into a pedestrian apocalypse midway through the chaotic finale, \u201cSong for the Dead.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Every so often, you are blessed with a concert so good it will leave you with post-concert depression. As a concert reporter, I attend countless shows and so am not touched by as many artists as I once was, but I will take the memory of this Queens of the Stone Age show with me to the grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you missed this concert, they will be touring again this fall, with a stop at the Fox Theater in Detroit on October 3rd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Setlist:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n According to a recent press release from Matador records, Queens of the Stone Age singer, multi instrumentalist, and visionary, Josh Homme,\u201chad dreamt of staging a QOTSA performance in the Catacombs since his first visit nearly 20 years ago,\u201d but Paris had never allowed any artist to play within the Catacombs \u2013 until 2024, when QOTSA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":1925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[24,25,27,19],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1924"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1924"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1930,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1924\/revisions\/1930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arouseosu.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n