Queens Of The Stone Age @ Barclays Center (December 14, 2013)

This summer I finally saw Queens Of The Stone Age for the first at the Made In America festival out in Philadelphia. It was a great set, but it was a shortened festival set. Tonight I finally got to catch a full set from the triumphant rock band, and god damn, it was one epic performance. I drove in from my house into the city during this damn ugly snowstorm, but it was completely worth it.

The Kills opened the show with a dirty sexy set from the duo of Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince. It was my first time catching them live, and they didn’t disappoint. Mosshart, now sporting blonde hair, is a wonder to watch perform on stage. Hince and her are animated and full of energy. They were backed up by two pairs of drummers who pounded away in the background while the two made their gloriously sexy noise.

Queens Of The Stone age came on stage with a clock that counted down from one minute. Once that bad boy hit zero, the crowd roared, and the band hit full gear into opener “You Think I Ain’t Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire.” Josh Homme and the rest of the band were glad to be there performing for us, putting in all of their energy into the performance, not idling for a second. They were constantly in motion with their tunes, bringing their instruments for the ride, as they shifted from side to side, and jumped in air. They wasted no time delivering the goods, playing their biggest commercial hit, “No One Knows” second in the set. They gave us no time to breath, following that with “My God Is The Sun” and “Burn The Witch.”

Homme urged us not to follow any rules (using a recent show at Boston) as an example, to have fun and kick loose. He did the same, taking a swig of something brown, and smoking a cigarette on stage. He had all the right in the world, as he led what was surely one of the best rock shows that I’ve seen this year (and probably in general).

There was no dull moment to be found. Obviously their new album …Like Clockwork got most of the attention with tracks like “If I Had A Tail”, “The Vampyre Of Time And Memory” and “Kalopsia”, being played. But they also made plenty of room for the attention grabbers “Make It With Chu”, “Sick, Sick, Sick”, “Go With The Flow”, “Little Sister”, “Feel Good Hit Of The Summer”, and the insane encore closer, “A Song For The Dead.” These songs not only filled all of Barclays Center, but gave it the middle finger while doing so.

People say rock music is dead. Don’t know how they can say that when we have one of the current greats out there doing amazing work. Queens Of The Stone Age are keeping rock and roll very much alive.

Setlist and some more photos below. No photo pass, so these are just iPhone shots, as you’ll surely be able to tell.

Setlist:
1. You Think I Ain’t Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire
2. No One Knows
3. My God Is the Sun
4. Burn the Witch
5. Smooth Sailing
6. Monsters in the Parasol
7. I Sat by the Ocean
8. …Like Clockwork
9. I Never Came
10. If I Had a Tail
11. Kalopsia
12. Little Sister
13. Fairweather Friends
14. Make It Wit Chu
15. Sick, Sick, Sick
16. Better Living Through Chemistry
17. Go With the Flow