Hollywood has seen drama. It has seen spectacle. It has seen art, artifice, and enough theatrics to fill a thousand lifetimes. But nothing could prepare the Dolby Theatre for the Catacombs Tour,\u00a0Queens of the Stone Age\u2019s velvet-draped, shadow-soaked, fully unhinged night of rock-opera sorcery, wherein longtime band leader Josh Homme played ringmaster, pallbearer, gremlin king, and ma\u00eetre d\u2019 of madness all at once.<\/p>\n
What began as a concert film shot deep in the Paris Catacombs\u2014the eerie, candlelit\u00a0Alive in the Catacombs<\/a>\u2014has now been reborn as a roving theater piece: QOTSA in suits, fans dressed to the nines, strings and brass lining the wings, spooky shadows and dim candlelight, and 13 musicians interlocking like gears in some decadent, undead machine. The band promised a show unlike anything they\u2019d ever done. They undersold it.<\/p>\n Even some celebs turned out for the Los Angeles stop, including one-time QOTSA drummer\u00a0Dave Grohl, Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and\u00a0comedian\u00a0W. Kamau Bell.<\/p>\n But before QOTSA cracked open the crypt door, the evening opened with something quieter, stranger, and perfect for the mood.<\/p>\n Armed with only an acoustic guitar and the kind of unfiltered candor that makes an entire theater lean forward,\u00a0Paris Jackson\u00a0delivered a stark, shadowy set of songs from her upcoming\u00a0Linda Perry collab album.<\/p>\n \u201cAll my songs are either about drugs or boys,\u201d she joked, \u201csometimes both,\u201d before sliding into dark-petaled confessionals like \u201cZombies in Love\u201d, \u201cSomething\u201d, and a chilling tune about gaslighting introduced with, \u201cWho here has been gaslit before? If you have, this one\u2019s for you.\u201d<\/p>\n There wasn\u2019t a happy song in sight from\u00a0Michael Jackson\u2019s daughter, and the audience, as she wryly noted, were \u201csick fucks\u201d for loving every minute.<\/p>\n Not long after Paris stepped offstage, the lights dimmed as the sound of crickets chirping filled the home of the Oscars. One lone bulb dangled around the stage, swinging in\u00a0Josh\u00a0Homme\u2019s hand as he slinked forward, casting a monstrous silhouette behind him like Nosferatu after a night out in Silver Lake.<\/p>\n A string trio glowed faintly as QOTSA emerged onstage, piece by piece. They opened with a spectral intertwining of \u201cRunning Joke \/ Paper Machete\u201d, the arrangements skeletal, woozy, and dripping with noir.<\/p>\n Then came the deep cuts, like deep-beneath-the-streets-of-Paris cuts. \u201cKalopsia\u201d kicked the show into full heartbreak opera mode. \u201cVillains of Circumstance\u201d emerged reimagined as a chamber dirge. For \u201cSuture Up Your Future\u201d, the players slimmed down to just Josh\u2014singing like a man picking at stitches he knows will never heal\u2014alongside the three-piece string section and Dean Fertita on keys. \u201cI Never Came\u201d was so intimate as to feel like the audience had stumbled into a ritual they weren\u2019t supposed to witness.<\/p>\n If Act I was a slow, seductive descent, Act II kicked open the ossuary.<\/p>\n A disembodied Homme voice floated over the PA, someplace between confession, monologue, and cult-leader welcome. Suddenly, the curtains drew back to reveal a full string and brass section as the band burst into a haunting medley of \u201cSomeone\u2019s in the Wolf \/ A Song for the Deaf \/ Straight Jacket Fitting\u201d.<\/p>\n The arrangements? Cinematic, bombastic, and unhinged.\u00a0Josh? Even more so.<\/p>\n He teased the crowd about dressing up, then launched into \u201cMosquito Song\u201d, wandering the aisles waving a meat cleaver like a desert-dwelling Sweeney Todd.<\/p>\n \u201cKeep Your Eyes Peeled\u201d throbbed with sousaphone-level bass. \u201cSpinning in Daffodils\u201d\u2014a gem from Them Crooked Vultures that Grohl certainly appreciated\u2014bloomed into a psych-drone waltz as Homme and bassist Michael Shuman danced the macabre. During another sojourn into the crowd, Josh wet his whistle with a swig from a fan\u2019s drink mid-song.<\/p>\n This was the Catacombs Tour at full, glorious, gothic tilt.<\/p>\n After another voiceover, the orchestra faded, the band tightened, and suddenly the whole room was vibrating with a more familiar QOTSA swagger.<\/p>\n They ripped open with \u201cYou Got a Killer Scene There, Man\u2026\u201d before easing into an orchestral-rock hybrid that truly justified this whole experiment. Homme launched into a monologue about finding one\u2019s spark at any age, making \u201cstrange requests\u201d after enough booze, and how tonight they\u2019d play whatever the hell they felt like.<\/p>\n Josh Homme: \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter when you get a spark; it matters that you get one.\u201d Thus began the \u201cchoose your nightmare\u201d portion of the evening. \u201cHideaway\u201d came in dripping with midnight menace. For \u201cThe Vampyre of Time and Memory\u201d, Homme commanded the piano, smoking casually through Dean\u2019s guitar solo like a man at the world\u2019s sexiest funeral. \u201cAuto Pilot\u201d offered an opportunity for Shuman to shine on lead vocals<\/p>\n Homme introduced a new song, \u201cEasy Street\u201d, with a speech about anger, acceptance, and making peace with your ghosts, and closed it out by leading the crowd in a full-theatre chorale. He dedicated a heavy, haunted \u201cFortress\u201d to his daughter, Camille. QOTSA closed out the third act with \u201c\u2026Like Clockwork\u201d, the band sounding like they\u2019d gathered every ghost from the Paris catacombs to sing backing vocals. Before stepping offstage, Homme, in his typically disarming sarcasm, introduced the orchestra as \u201cthe people who bow and blow.\u201d<\/p>\n The encore was equal parts comedy set, group therapy and s\u00e9ance. Homme riffed for minutes, praising L.A., reminiscing about bandmates lost, shouting out Nick Oliveri\u2019s birthday, swearing the band had \u201c58 more minutes\u201d if we wanted them, half\u2010joking, half-not.<\/p>\n Then the lights fell still for \u201cLong Slow Goodbye\u201d, with just Josh and Michael singing a capella.<\/p>\n Queens of the Stone Age left Hollywood with this truth carved into the Dolby Theatre walls: they are not a nostalgia act. They are not retreating. They are evolving, mutating, becoming something stranger, darker, funnier, more theatrical, and more alive than ever.<\/p>\n QOTSA will close out the Catacombs Tour with dates in Austin, TX on November 19th and New Orleans, LA on November 21st.<\/p>\n Come summer of 2026, they will join\u00a0System of a Down\u00a0and\u00a0Acid Bath\u00a0for a European run that already feels apocalyptic.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also that unreleased material (\u201cEasy Street\u201d onstage, \u201cInsignificant Other\u201d teased in the Catacombs film) that suggests a new album may be creeping out of the crypt sooner than later.<\/p>\n Until then, Los Angeles will be talking about this one for a long, long time.<\/p>\n Longer, perhaps, than the mere mortals who witnessed it will hang around.<\/p>\n Queens Of The Stone Age \u2013 Dolby Theatre \u2013 Los Angeles, CA \u2013 11\/11\/25 [Video Playlist]
[Video: Tamara Grace<\/a>]<\/p>\n
[Videos: Todd Norris<\/a>]<\/p>\n