Queens of the Stone Age graduate to headliners with loose and heavy Download 2024 set

“I’m stoned and fucked up and I feel amazing,” Queens of the Stone Age‘s Josh Homme told the crowd on the first night of Download Festival 2024, the evening the band made their long-awaited rise to being headliners at Donington Park for the first time.

Last year hosted the 20^th edition of the Donington metal instutition, with Metallica playing two sets to reflect upon the festival’s history and legacy. For year 21, Download enter their third decade by ushering in new headliners, with Queens joined at the top of the bill by Fall Out Boy and Avenged Sevenfold this weekend.

Though they have been rock heavyweights for as long as Download has existed, Queens’ eventual rise to being headliners coincided with somewhat of a renaissance for the band. 2023 album In Times New Roman… is regarded as one of their best, and their live show has become a pummelling force of riffs and rage.

At the Download show, Homme – possibly due to his own admission of being “stoned and fucked up” – hit a new level of showmanship required from festival headliners. He led the crowd through a singalong for ‘Make It With Chu’ and mingled with the front rows during ‘Straight Jacket Fitting’.

At the end of the latter song, he briefly turns into the kind of baptist preacher who would lap up their unique brand of rollicking desert rock. “Yesterday is gone, tomorrow was never here, and tonight, right now, is all we’re ever gonna have,” he slurred, landing somewhere in between drunk uncle and inspirational rock star. Despite the loose nature of his between-song chatter, once he locks in to hits from across the band’s career, Homme is as tight as ever, gliding effortlessly through superbly heavy, funky versions of ‘Go With the Flow’ and ‘The Sky is Fallin’.

His band – hip-shaking guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, striking and sturdy bassist Michael Schuman, brutal drummer Jon Theodore and superb keys player Dean Fertita – remain the best around, adding pure power and brute force to Homme’s Friday night party.

On the first night of Download’s new era, Queens of the Stone Age might have felt like they had something to prove. In reality, Homme just wanted to have the biggest party possible and continue his band’s excellent renaissance. A one-two punch of the timeless ‘No One Knows’ and brutal ‘Song for the Dead’ closed things out before another immortal line from the frontman: “You cunts are alright”. The sentiment was reflected right back to the band.

Queens of the Stone Age played:

‘Little Sister’
‘Burn the Witch’
‘My God Is the Sun’
‘Smooth Sailing’
‘Paper Machete’
‘Emotion Sickness’
‘Go With the Flow’
‘The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret’
‘Carnavoyeur’
‘The Sky is Fallin’
‘Better Living Through Chemistry’
‘Sick, Sick, Sick’
‘I Sat by the Ocean’
‘Straight Jacket Fitting’
‘Make It Wit Chu’
‘You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, but I Feel Like a Millionaire’
‘No One Knows’
‘A Song for the Dead’

Keep up with all the latest news and reviews from Download Festival 2024 on Rolling Stone UK here.