Could Josh HommeÂs ego possibly be more bloated at this
point? ÂThis is a song about fuckinÂ, he says with a satisfied chuckle, surely
attempting to rile up a crowd whoÂd no doubt been bored stiff by the
unintelligible mess Mastodon made of their set. Well yukety fucking yuk, Josh,
but the jokeÂs on you because youÂre a white trash pile of dusty,
desert-mongering rattlesnake shit, you swollen-headed twat. For starters, the
Nokia Theater seats about 7,000 people. Sure, it was a Monday night and tickets
were forty fudge-packing dollars, but there mustÂve been a good 5,000 heads
milling around by the time Queens came on. Now if they
gave two shits about their unfortunate fans, they wouldÂve charged half the
price, played the entirety of Songs for
the Deaf, closed with a cover of AlanÂs
Wrench, and promptly hung themselves backstage. But because we know Josh is
a smug, self-indulgent rockstar, they labored through most of the new gibberish
which half a liter of whiskey canÂt even make interesting. It also appears that
the band just doesnÂt care about playing live anymore because theyÂve got
absolutely no stage presence. They looked tired, and so did the crowd. My
brother actually fell asleep.
But who can blame Queens for sucking?
The acoustics at the Nokia make the Whisky a Go-Go sound like the fucking Walt
Disney Concert Hall. DonÂt even get me started on the outdoor bar/Wolfgang Puck
pizza tent, where a plastic sippy-cup of Jack n Coke was going for eight
dollars. Inflated prices and underwhelming performances aside, the most
infuriating part of going to shows in Los Angeles
is the hipster factor. They stream down from the surrounding Los
Feliz/Hollywood hillsides with the fury of a Wendol fireworm, making obnoxious
everything in their path. Half of the people at the show were there to be seen
rather than to see the show. Many of them mingled in the lobby with cocktails
held at a precise tilt, pinky fingers extended to the most annoying degree.
Mastodon, bless them, brought in enough scum to partially combat the scenester
influx. Unfortunately, they pulled just as many lanky hardcore kooks in stupid
Halloween costumes whoÂd never heard of the band before Blood Mountain.
Speaking of Mastodon, they were sincerely dreadful. Their
set was a long, muddled string of racket; I could hardly decipher one song
from the other. They tend to put on pretty good shows so I can only come back
to blaming the NokiaÂit might be comfortable, clean, spacious, and wonderfully
lit, but fuck me if I havenÂt heard more clarity at a high school talent show.
Masters of molten metal my ass! Now that theyÂre flourishing with big-dollar
backing and Hommeian endorsement, it remains to be seen whether or not theyÂll
turn to complete shit. I hope not. What surprised me the most was the
predominant lack of groupie sluts. No whores at a Queens
show?? IÂm sure there were gaggles waiting back stage on all fours, lubed asses
at the ready for Josh and his posse of idle drones, but the only strumpets I
saw were the requisite Halloween nurses. Sadly, they were the only people worth
seeing that night because Queens blew. Josh once said, Âwe want sex to bleed into the
music. ThatÂs great, bud, especially when
youÂre the president of a 5,000 man sausage union for the night. You should be stripped, bound, and mercilessly flogged with the limb
of a Joshua tree.