Queens Of The Stone Age

With The Kills and The Amazons

Bassano Del Grappa, 16 July

A number of lucky factors had brought us to Bassano Del Grappa to see Queens Of The Stone Age, namely the venue was enroute between Munich and Catollica, with a minor detour on our #RaceAcrossEurope

The were a band we hadn’t seen live before though and only fairly familiar with their music too so in some ways we were taking a bit of a gamble to see them play.

The gamble paid off though, as Josh Homme and the band played a sterling set at the foot of the Venetian Prealps Mountain range.

As we had anticipated, the set was full of hard rock tracks, some more familiar than expected, probably due to the on-repeat videos we saw in the days of MTV2. The band were on fine form musically, the lightshow while relatively simple was very effective given the backdrop of the nearby mountains and I’m sure it must have been an impressive sight for anyone camping out and looking down on the field from afar.

Josh Homme remains a huge personal presence on stage. A great frontman to get the crowd going and also a brilliant guitarist.

Like our first gig with Nine Inch Nails back in Paris where Trent Reznor took centre stage, I became aware of the creative juice that enables both to write their music when they teamed up with Dave Grohl in Sound City Real To Real and the track Mantra. So simple in the makeup of the song. So effective in the delivery.

Like that track, everything played on the night was based round collective simplicity. Yes, there were flourishes of virtuosity from the band when required, however the sum of the individual parts had the crowd in raptures throughout the set.

Support Acts

The Kills.

Like a 4A bus at home, one doesn’t come for an hour and two quickly follow in succession and that’s what it was like with The Kills. Having never seen them before we embarked on our #RaceAcrossEurope tour we were watching and listening to them for the second time in as many days. The first time was in Zagreb and the review of that gig can be read here.

The major difference between both sets wasn’t in the setlist, which captured all the great songs they have in their repertoire. It wasn’t that both Allison and Jamie had an off night, they sang and played their hearts out throughout. The difference was that they seemed lost in the vast stage and weren’t able to feed off the vibe of the audience as they had done in the much smaller venue in Zagreb where they were the headliners.

There were hardcore Kills fans in the audience who lapped up the performance. However, there were also too many others who were only there for Queens Of The Stone Age which was a great pity as musically there is something uniquely appealing about the sounds and energy these two talented individuals bring to the party.

The Amazons.

First on to the stage, the band from Reading were one we seen a few years ago, in the pre-pandemic days, and were one that I had tipped to go far at that time, especially after their album the self-titled The Amazons was released in 2017 provided early proof that they were on an upward curve. Eight years and three further albums later, the promise remains though as we looked across the field as the audience arrived, there was a sense that the word hadn’t spread to this part of the world. It certainly wasn’t for the lack of trying by frontman Matt Thomson who did his utmost to engage with the crowd.

I still believe they have the potential to become a more familiar name in the music world, only time will tell if this prediction comes true though.

The town, the setting, the feel-good atmosphere, the three acts. Another positive box to tick off, though Bronagh was more than a little peeved that security took her sanitiser and bug sprays off her on arrival!