Nothing better to do on a Thursday night?  How about nipping up to Southampton on the train to catch a performance by The Best Rock Band In The World?  Queens Of The Stone Age take elements from established rock acts, and incorporate them into well-disguised takes on many different styles of music - new single 'No One Knows' is apparently based around a polka beat, and I've heard album track 'Another Love Song' compared to Ricky Martin!

What makes tonight's gig all the more entertaining is the timing: Hallowe'en.  The band takes to the stage in all manner of gothic dress, with faces black as their souls, or white as a ghost.  The audience are more than adequately dressed for the occasion also.  I can't imagine a crowd I would rather be with on this night of the year.  What is a hindrance during tonight's set is the venue - Southampton Guildhall as has zilcho atmosphere.  The only thing to compare it to is a shoebox with a tiny upper stall miles away at the back of the room.  All that can be done to do to improve the situation is to barge as far possible towards the front, and hope that the moshpit will mask you from the rigid walls and high ceiling of this place.

Queens Of The Stone Age blast through a selection of tracks from all three of their albums, with perhaps too little emphasis on the most recent 'Songs For The Deaf' - with an album that good, and without a doubt their finest, why not ditch some of the earlier stuff in favour of live interpretations of such gems as 'God Is In The Radio' and 'Another Love Song'?  Dave Grohl's absence on drums is not noticed, due to a fine stand-in who performs impressively in the style of some long-forgotten seventies progressive rock beast - but did I notice him simplifying some of Dave Grohl's complicated fill-ins every now and again?

By the end of the show, the band's ghoulish makeup has been sweated away and, in the case of bassist Nick Oliveri, so have all of his clothes (as is becoming customary).  The on-off flicking of the house lights after the first encore is a nice tease before they return to the stage once again.

A versatile and accurate performance of a (select) few tracks from one of 2002's best albums.

Review: Andrew Morrison