Queens of the Stone Age’s Burning House of Love

Queens of the Stone Age closed their first North American tour since 2018 on Saturday night as if they’d never been away, hitting the road this year with reignited firepower and brutal swing. In a 20-song set at the hometown Kia Forum, the Los Angeles hard rock band unfurled songs from throughout its career, delivered in as rowdy a mood as anyone could hope for.

During the night, band leader Josh Homme and Troy Van Leeuwen wrestled their guitars seemingly to the death, stomping and gliding across the stage, flinging their guitars sideways and back. “It’s Saturday night. Don’t be shy now. It’s just us, you’re friends and family,” Homme said in one of many affectionate comments to fans.

It was a full house at the Forum, the 17,505-capacity former home to the Los Angeles Lakers, and the site of generations of historic concerts by icons of hard rock, from Black Sabbath to Van Halen to Nirvana to Slayer. Homme was back with the longest-serving lineup in his band’s history: guitarist-keyboardists Van Leeuwen and Dean Fertita, bassist Michael Shuman and drummer Jon Theodore.

Earlier this year, the band released In Times New Roman…, the first album to emerge following unprecedented turmoil in the bandleader’s personal life that meant the end of his marriage and a painfully public custody battle for his kids. Maybe not surprisingly, it also marked a return to the harder edge of the band’s sound, following the more playful Villains in 2017. Hard times had once before led him to some of his most profound work when he emerged from a serious health crisis to create the deeply felt, almost philosophical …Like Clockwork in 2013.

On Saturday, the band was loud and aggressive, and Homme couldn’t have been more relaxed between songs. At one point he announced: “This is our last show ever,” to confused silence, then added, “this year.” Even the band members around him might have been caught off-guard by that moment.

The song “Time & Place” (from In Times New Roman…) was heavy with layers of noise along the edges, but also moved with a playful swing, and shadings of light at dark, as Homme sang of a moment of confrontation: “You got a lotta nerve coming ’round this place/If you’re a pretty boy, you’ve got to save face.” Shuman kicked the air as the trio of guitarists drilled down on the riff into a tumbling wall of sound.

Homme called the crowd “a handsome bunch,” while pushing back his red hair, then began “The Way You Used to Do,” from the danceable Villains, produced by pop-rock hitmaker Mark Ronson. Except that at the Forum, the song was sweatier, Theodore’s beats were harder, and Homme sang passionately like it was showtime at the Apollo.

On “Paper Machete,” a jagged Van Leeuwen solo threatened to fly apart, as Homme and Fertita drove the main riff underneath. For the woozy “Make It Wit Chu,” Dean Fertita banged out the rolling piano intro, as Homme encouraged the crowd to freely sit on each other’s shoulders. “You bought the ticket,” he said, “do what you want.” He also stepped back to allow fans to sing the falsetto chorus. He then pointed to a fan playfully and said, “I’m in room 225, by the way.”

For the encore, things only got heavier, beginning with “Regular John,” from QOTSA’s 1998 self-titled debut album, teetering into spasms of noise and melody. The intensity of feeling seemed fitting as Homme noted the recent losses of three close friends: Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, actor Rio Hackford, and singer Mark Lanegan, leader of the Screaming Trees and sometime QOTSA member. The night ended with an intense tune Lanegan used to sing with the band, 2002’s “A Song for the Dead.” Homme leaned into the mic and raged, “Come on, let’s take a little ride/That’s the study of dyin’/How to do it right,” then closed out with a storm of feedback to send fans home, an unruly sound still ringing long after the band left the stage.

Support act Spiritualized began their eight-song set on a euphoric note, with the anxious psychedelic swirl of “Hey Jane,” a nine-minute epic from 2012’s Sweet Heart Sweet Light. As ever, leader Jason Pierce kept the lights down low and sat like John Lee Hooker on stage left with his guitar and music stand, singing with the help of two backup singers in white lab coats. Pierce – AKA J Spaceman – sat across the stage from his band, tapping his effects pedals with silver sneakers. The sound was mysterious and timeless, leaning into the future with a debt to the acid rock past on “She Kissed Me (It Felt Like a Hit)” and “Shine a Light.” While very different from QOTSA, Spiritualized was by itself worth the price of admission.

Before the concert, QOTSA celebrated their hometown show by setting up an outdoor carnival around the arena called the Queens Colosseum, and offered games, tattoos, tarot readings, snapshots with a black metal Santa, a record store and more. There was a small stage for local bands, including the danceable, mostly female hard rock of DeathbyRomy, bringing new sounds to fans ready to begin a full night of wild, muscular rock.

Queens of the Stone Age’s Kia Forum setlist:

No One Knows

The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret

Smooth Sailing

My God Is the Sun

Emotion Sickness

I Sat by the Ocean

Time & Place

Burn the Witch

Carnavoyeur

The Way You Used to Do

Villains of Circumstance

Better Living Through Chemistry

Sick, Sick, Sick

Paper Machete

Make It Wit Chu

Little Sister

Encore:

Regular John

God Is in the Radio

Go With the Flow

A Song for the Dead