On May 15^th 2008 Queens of the Stone Age played St. John’s Newfoundland for a Molson Canadian Rocks win to get in concert. Seems like a great idea, however this can lead to problems for fans of the band and the band themselves as it did on this night.

First problem with these types of concerts is that the hardcore fans of the band are stuck having to try and win tickets in beer cases or buy them off someone who did. In some cases having to pay as much as $150-$200 for a pair of tickets from some random person who won them in a beer case. QOTSA is a band that has a lot of fans, but also a lot of people who do not know who they are or can’t even stand them. They’re not an everyman band like Our Lady Peace, The Hip, or even Pearl Jam, where everyone knows at least some of their hits and can sing along. Those bands are more suited to this type of “win to get in event”, QOTSA don’t even get any radio play here.

So what you end up with is a few hardcore fans that paid a fair price to get into the free show, a few people that won and genuinely want to check out the band, and a small fraction people that just want to get loaded and cause shit. This third group made their presence known at this show.

The first incident was during a performance of “Little Sister” when someone threw a shoe and hit Josh Homme causing him to stop playing the song. After a little bit of yelling at the crowd about how they shouldn’t throw things if they want to enjoy a show. The crowd cheered him and they started the song over. Then the show went on for a bit and during the encore while playing “No One Knows” someone threw a full glass of beer and hit Homme again. This time all the audience got was a “good night” and the band left the stage. Another shoe was thrown (probably the match to the one thrown earlier) around this time as well.

The problem with this is the fans of the band end up getting short changed by having the band leave the stage early pissed off. They may never want to come back to St. John’s again, and leave with a bad impression of Newfoundland in general. You can bet they won’t tell anyone how great the crowd in St. John’s was (which it usually is). Those people who were throwing things probably think it’s great that they got a reaction and don’t care if the band ever comes back. I don’t believe this would happen if the show was a regular pay to get in show. Nobody who spends $50 - $60 on a ticket is going to throw beer and shoes at the band.

Anyway, here are some highlights from the show. It was a great energetic performance overall. Too bad it went down like it did.

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