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The real question is: Can we get through this without using the word 'stoner'? Oops... I did it again. Stoned, metallic, evil, nude, covered in hair, or otherwise - anyway you dress it, Queens Of The Stone Age rock. They breathe smoke, blow fire, and roll on.
Rocketing right past subtlety comes 'Feel Good Hit Of The Summer', what may be the smartest dumb song of all time. Clearly, we're going to have a good time, and the Queens will be supplying the headache.
This is a band of opposites. Josh Homme executes paint-stripping riffs with a nonchalance that makes us suspect that "Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, Marijuana, Ecstasy and Alcohol... C-c-c-c-c-co-caaaainee" is his personal rider. If Homme likes the blue ones, then devil-bearded bassist Nick Oliveri likes the reds. He stalks the stage, veering between stranglehold stares and grinning goofiness while relishing in lead screaming duty for the crazed and churning 'Quick And To The Pointless'.
The lyrics aren't deep or particularly moving - they barely manage to go anywhere, except around again. The music, on the other hand, is deep and rumbling, and always moving. Take 'Monsters In The Parasol', featuring the deadpanned and surreal line, "I've seen some things I thought I never saw, covered in hair". That sort of nonsense should lead to a head-scratching 'Huh?'. Not tonight, though. When Homme starts tracing constellations on his frets and Oliveri digs in with a headlock-tight groove, it makes all the sense it needs to.
"We're live on the radio," prompts Homme, before leading the room in a rousing "Fuck" chant. "Now they're all jealous because they can't come and fuck with the rest of us," he says, before adding Pop-Rocks to our laundry list of vices with an addictive, sugar buzz-harmonied version of 'The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret'. The room spins, the girls swoon.
Oliveri clears up the "covered in hair" line. He returns for the encore wearing nothing but his bass. So much for keeping a secret. We land our otherworldly trip as 'You Can't Quit Me Baby' threatens to pass out, hanging on to the slightest hum of electricity before lurching back for one last gasp thanks to Dave Catching's spacey, squealing lap steel. The crowd offers up all the hand signals they know. Bang head here. Go home happy.