Despite striding the world of rock like a hulking russet behemoth, there’s something rather coquettish about Josh Homme and tonight even more so than usual. For such a laconic frontman he was devilishly pleased at the Glasgow crowds unrelenting responsiveness and had an unprecedented amount of banter as a result.

But playing their début album from start to finish was always going to be risky for the Queens, its minimal motorik songs lacking the melodic hooks and exuberant technicality of their subsequent work. Such potentially trance inducing tracks require excellent sound quality and sadly that wasn’t on offer this evening; Joey Castillo's meticulous drumming was often the only thing coalescing a muddied miasma of sound.

The tooth-saw guitar of lean mean opener 'Regular John' may have set the tone but an early highlight was the nonchalant rat pack croon of ‘I Was A Teenage Hand Model', peppered with fabulous 50’s sci fi noises which sounded like they were ripping straight across our heads; a b-movie prom band gone bad/good. But overall the crowd were enthralled by their twisted toy town guitar histrionics and by encore time, a staggering sandblasted march inducing ‘Burn The Witch’ and staccato paced ‘No One Knows’, they'd gone proper mental.

The first half of the evening was like standing at the foot of Mount Rushmore during the early dawn; an impressive but chilled and ill-defined sight. By the end the sun had risen on something vital and magical, inexplicably carved from towering stone.

Words: Anna Wilson
Photography: Kelly McIntyre