Queens of the Stone Age finished up the European leg of their ‘The End is Nero’ tour last month. I attended the concert nearest me accompanied by my father, ten years and two days after the last time I saw them with him. It was the ninth time I’ve seen them live in the last twenty one years.
Nine times in two decades doesn’t make me some kind of superfan. However, I’ve found that each concert has become more than just a rock show, it’s become, as mortifyingly cliched as it is, the playlist of my adult life.
This song, they played when my soon-to-be girlfriend drunkenly pushed me against a pillar next to the bar and violently kissed me. Ahh… I last heard that one fifteen years ago at the show I attended with one of my best friends whom I lost contact with a long, long while ago. We got blind drunk on Georgia Moon in my favourite bar beforehand and have zero recollection of how I managed to get home. I remember hearing this track during a show in a venue that has since burned down and never rebuilt, which is fitting considering I was in an awful, mutually toxic relationship at the time.
I have no parasocial relationship with Josh Homme. I don’t hero-worship him, nor have I ever thought of him as a role model. As the years have advanced I’ve even found myself becoming less and less interested in their new music as Homme drifted away from Kyuss’ Robot Rock and David Bowie’s influence over his musical style turned suffocating. I only listened to ‘In Times New Roman’ once. It’s too dark and miserable and saturated with the emotions of Homme’s toxic marriage breakdown. But in 2002 I had no idea Queens of the Stone Age gig would at some point cease being a setlist of songs I like and become a vault for some of my most cherished memories. It just sort of… happened. Funny, that.
Anyway, I walked home alone that Saturday night this past November, carrying the heavy weight of a strange, melancholic nostalgia on my back. Which again is very fitting as I turn 40 this year. Today, in fact. Another memory for the QotSA vault.
For everyone in the Northern Hemisphere, happy Winter Solstice, finally the sun is coming back to us. Take care of yourselves and have a wonderful day.
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