Josh Homme was joined on stage at London’s Royal Festival Hall by Mark Lanegan at a special acoustic show last night (June 16) as part of this year’s Meltdown festival.
The musician and former Queens Of The Stone Age member appeared for two songs in the middle of the set, playing his own ‘One Hundred Days’ and a version of QOTSA’s own ‘Hanging Tree’. QOTSA guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen also performed on both tracks with Homme and Lanegan.
Earlier, UNKLE‘s James Lavelle, the curator of Meltdown 2014, introduced Homme on stage, describing him as a “very good friend, sometime comedian and one of the best musicians in the world.” Homme, dressed in a grey suit and white shirt, then strode to his seat in the spotlight with a bottle of red wine and opened the show by himself with ‘Long Slow Goodbye’.
The set featured a number of covers, including Dean Martin’s ‘Memories Are Made Of This’, Marty Wilde’s ‘Bad Boy’ and ‘Dark As A Dungeon’, made famous by Johnny Cash when he, as Homme explained, “played it in jail to a bunch of convicts.” The singer also played a new song called ‘Villains Of Circumstance’, which he claimed to have “made up 30 minutes ago”.
Van Leeuwen then joined him for the rest of the hour-long performance, including versions of QOTSA’s ‘Mosquito Song’, ‘Kalopsia’ and ‘I Never Came’. Homme switched from guitar to piano for a rendition of ‘The Vampyre Of Time And Memory’ before moving to bass for set closer ‘Into The Hollow’.
Meltdown festival began at London’s Southbank Centre on June 3 and will run until June 22. Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ guitarist Nick Zinner will premier his ’41 Strings’ piece, featuring 41 acoustic and electric strings, along with drums and synths, on June 20. Rosie Lowe, Glass Animals, Chrissie Hynde and Goldie are also set to perform.
Josh Homme played:
‘Long Slow Goodbye’
‘Memories Are Made of This’
‘Villains Of Circumstance’
‘Dark As A Dungeon’
‘Mosquito Song’
‘I Never Came’
‘One Hundred Days’
‘Hanging Tree’
‘Bad Boy’
‘The Vampyre Of Time And Memory’
‘Kalopsia’
‘Into The Hollow’