Please Queens of the Stone Age - give up now

I've been a QOTSA fan for pretty much all of their existence, and a massive Kyuss fan before that, and over the last couple of years I've kinda grown used to my beloved band losing the plot, particularly with the pretty hopeless "Era Vulgaris" album and the unfocussed mess that is "Lullabies to Paralyze". But I've stuck it out, as to me QOTSA represented everything great about American rock music, their first three records are unlike anything any band has released before or since, and they always delivered, even if the majority of the payload in recent years has been pretty weak material and an ever-fluctuating line-up. Still, there was the odd moment of magic on each disc, and the Desert Sessions has always been a welcome excursion. But when the parent band is eclipsed by the Desert Sessions collective something must be wrong.

Anyhow, I've tried to catch QOTSA every time they've been in Ireland, and even in such poxy surrounds as the Main Stage at Oxegen they have never failed or disappointed. But I've noticed a gradual decline in their stock, their interest, and and in Josh, their ginger beanpole leader, in recent years. Sure, the hired guns give it socks, but the band has been a shadow of its once great self for years now, and despite assuring myself that they will one day return to reach the heights they once did with consumate ease, it's been difficult to muster any enthusiasm for them as I once did. I can't even listen to the last two albums anymore they're that bad.

But the news that QOTSA are supporting LINKIN PARK in the RDS in Dublin at 70 QUID a ticket is the final straw for me.

The last time LINKIN PARK played Dublin it was at the same venue was with Metallica, The Darkness and a few others and they were bottled off the stage from the second they walked onto it. 40,000 people booed en masse during their set, the "DJ" goaded the crowd to try and hit him, and almost in slow motion, a beer bottle then curled through the air and hit him right on the forehead. So poor was the reception and the degree of hatred shown towards them when Chester Copperpot or whatever he's called unfurled a shop bought Irish tricolour that their set had to be cut short. It was magic stuff. Like Donington in the good old bottle of piss days. Even James Hetfield took the piss out of them when Metallica came on.

So, it's a sad end to a once great band like QOTSA to be playing second fiddle to an outfit like LP, and a it's a sad way to end my relationship with a once great band... but this is just the pits, and to me it sadly represents what QOTSA is about nowadays: Money. It's fuck the fans, fuck credibility and fuck their legacy. I wish Josh Homme would do the decent thing later this year and split the band, as support slots with the likes of Linkin Park undermines everything they have ever set out to achieve and represents the nadir of a decline into cliche.

I wish at this stage that Josh would just give it up, and stop pretending that QOTSA is a band. We know it's a nice cheque he's probably getting for the RDS but it's going to cost you a lot more in street cred.


So goodbye Josh, my lovely friend, your band means no more,
I hope we'll meet again, I've lost you now for sure
Goodbye my lovely friend, I loved you from the start
I knew that it would end, but didn't have the heart to see us part
No I must go.