Full moon over Queens of the Stone Age

I swear they're up there.

By the time Queens of the Stone Age took the stage, the last daylight blinked out and the full moon ascended behind Fiddlers Green Amphitheater. 

Amid a roaring crowd, Queens of the Stone Age didn’t play around. They immediately launched into No One Knows, their best-known song. That sent a signal that the band wouldn't skip its best-loved tunes in favor of new album promotion. It also showed that a 20-year-old song had lost none of its potency. 

Crowd pleasers held the setlist together. They ripped into Sick, Sick, Sick from Era Vulgaris, eliciting a chant from the audience. Turnin’ On the Screw and Make it Wit Chu would follow throughout the night. The sleazy, piano-driven Make it Wit Chu broke up the onslaught of heavy songs quite nicely. As the moon came up, eyes adjusted. If Fiddlers Green cut all the lights we could have still seen the band. 

With moon and the music, thoughts of the openers faded fast. Jehnny Beth had some promise. The French songwriter barreled through a high-energy set with elements of industrial and electronic music tied together by her voice. 

I held out hope for the Viagra Boys, as several friends are big fans. But their music stomped out all hope in a few hapless verses. A song called Sports was just singer naming sports and throwing in random words like “cigarettes.” Saxophone solos are always dicey, but I am pretty sure the man behind the saxophone has no idea how his instrument works. The solo was so piercing and atonal I almost expected him to get gored by a bull elk seeking to eliminate a rival. 

 The blazing pace of the Queens saved the evening and wiped away any taint from the openers. With a new album out this year (In Times New Roman), QOTSA did not lean too heavily on the new songs, with a modest five numbers making the set. But they fit among the songs everyone wanted to hear. My friend Patrick and I anticipated the start of My God is the Sun with a little air guitar and sure enough it came next. 

Of their albums, 2018’s Villains received the least love, with only The Way that You Used to Do in the set. That album did feature QOTSA stepping back from their traditional heavy sound and the heavier material just sounds better at an outdoor arena where the songs can ring out and not give everyone tinnitus (I already have it). 

The main set ended on Little Sister, its buzzsaw guitar riff and cowbell the perfect bookend to No One Knows. 

A three-song encore followed, anchored by Songs for the Deaf tracks God is in the Radio and closing with the always-pummeling Go With the Flow. 

Despite all the pyrotechnics and lights onstage, the band could have just gone with the full moon’s illumination and shined brighter.

At least Josh Homme is visible here.