As proven by their new “Catacombs Tour,” which kicked off Thursday, October 2nd at the Chicago Theatre, Queens of the Stone Age are currently obsessed with three things: time, death, and reinvention.
It makes sense. Frontman Josh Homme has already faced down a cancer diagnosis and a recent separate health scare that forced him to cancel a portion of QOTSA’s 2024 tour and undergo emergency surgery. Not to mention, the band has been rockin’ for almost 30 years; both personally and artistically, Homme and the band are wrestling with real notions of mortality and the decaying, uncaring nature of time.
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Earlier this year, such themes manifested in their concert film/live EP Alive in the Catacombs, which saw Queens of the Stone Age perform an intimate live set deep in the Parisian Catacombs (read a first-hand account of that experience in our cover story with Homme). Now, the usually hard-rocking act has translated those acoustic, macabre vibes into a stage show, one that transforms their ear-splitting rippers into a smoky theater production of dark folk and desert rock.
From a fan’s perspective, QOTSA’s “Catacombs” production starts well before any of the band members step onto the stage. The theater setting as well as the band encouraging audience members to show up dressed in their finest sets a very specific tone. Entering the Chicago Theatre, the place was already filled with fog, as if we were all about to take part in some ritual of resurrection.
After Paris Jackson’s opening set, the lights dimmed and a drone track played through the mains to reset the mood. After about five minutes of tension building (respect for holding out for so long), Homme slowly emerged from the audience carrying a stool. He launched into the opening cut, “Running Joke / Paper Machete,” alone with a microphone in one hand and the sole source of light in the other. As the tune progressed, the remaining players emerged one by one, until the stage was full with the band and their accompanying string players.
What followed was deconstructed rock as theater, broken into three acts: one mirroring the original stripped-back Alive in the Catacombs set, one that expanded the sonic scope with new instruments and the first touches of electronics, and one that felt relatively closer to a traditional rock show. (“Relatively” being a key modifier, as the tracks remained entirely rearranged to include strings and horns.)
Of all the successes of the gig, this three-act structure and its accompanying pacing might be the most impressive. Just as the conceit of one section was wearing out its novelty and excitement, it would transition into the next. Despite running for almost two hours and leaving some of QOTSA’s biggest hits off the setlist, the production remained thoroughly engaging.
Touching on the uniqueness of the setlist, the song selection is littered with deep cuts, live rarities, and even a brand new tune. Taking a look at Setlist.fm, nearly half of the songs are tagged with a “first time since 20xx.” For instance, the gang pulled out both “Mosquito Song” and “You’ve Got a Killer Scene There, Man…” for the first time since 2007, performed the Them Crooked Vultures song “Spinning in Daffodils” for the first time during a QOTSA set, and debuted the unreleased “Easy Street.”
The unfortunate result of crafting such an interesting setlist is the absence of many previous live staples. The band skipped out on beloved Songs for the Deaf tunes like “No One Knows,” “Go with the Flow,” and “Song for the Dead” (much to the dismay of the dude sitting next to me, who was shouting at the band to play it throughout the latter half of the show). Other fan-favorites like “Feel Good Hit of the Summer,” “The Way You Used to Do,” “I Sat by the Ocean,” or “Little Sister” were also nowhere to be found.
For the context of “The Catacombs Tour,” though, skipping out on such tracks makes sense. More than that, it works in practice. As cool as it would have been to hear “You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, but I Feel Like a Millionaire” reimagined to include French horn and cello, the setlist is curated with a clear intentionality. Maybe those songs merely didn’t lend themselves to rearrangement, or perhaps the crew felt that dropping a radio hit in the middle of the gig would have thrown off the dark and mysterious vibes. Whatever the case, they seem to have made the correct decisions.
Because, as Homme made clear throughout the show, “The Catacombs Tour” is specifically designed to be unlike anything QOTSA have done before. “Thank you for listening to us do something else,” the frontman said in between speeches about turning into worm food, jokes about running for mayor on a platform of “free pussy and cocaine,” and menacingly waving around a cleaver.
It’s certainly still a Queens of the Stone Age experience, and despite the formal dressing, the crowd’s energy made it feel very much like a rock ‘n’ roll show. That being said, don’t show up to “The Catacombs Tour” dressed to the nines expecting to get drunk while playing air guitar to “No One Knows.” Show up for a new artistic vision, for one of the most unique live experiences from a rock band of the year. It’ll be just as exciting — maybe even more so.
Setlist:
Act 1:
Running Joke / Paper Machete
Kalopsia
Villains of Circumstance
Suture Up Your Future
I Never Came
Act 2:
Someone’s in the Wolf / Song for the Deaf / Straight Jacket Fitting
Mosquito Song
Keep Your Eyes Peeled
Spinning in Daffodils (Them Crooked Vultures cover)
Act 3:
You Got a Killer Scene There, Man…
Hideaway
The Vampyre of Time and Memory
Auto Pilot
Easy Street
Fortress
…Like Clockwork
Encore:
Long Slow Goodbye
