July 7 at Roskilde Festival, Orange Stage

 

On the last day of what has been a very successful and largely-sun filled Roskilde Festival, California rockers Queens of the Stone Age opened appropriately enough with 'Feel Good Hit of The Summer', the lead track of the band's 2000 album, Rated R.

 

With its repeated refrain of "Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol", and the chorus "c-c-c-c-c-cocaine", QOTSA at once likely described last week's diet for some festival-goers and successfully set off one last rock party at the Orange stage. 

 

The band followed with 'No One Knows' and 'Millionaire', two tracks off of 2003's Songs for the Deaf before giving way to a gloriously sunny rendition of 'My God in the Sun', the evening's first taste of the band's excellent new album, …Like Clockwork. Followed by the desert rockers' attempt at a Sankt Hans Aften theme song, 'Burn the Witch', the band had defeated any last lingering hangovers and had the Sunday evening crowd with them. 

 

Although 'If I Had a Tail', which I have been giving a lot of play since …Like Clockwork's release just last month, was a personal highlight, the track that really got the audience going was 'Make It Wit Chu', a song about exactly what it says it is. Just as it seemed like frontman Josh Homme's sneers and sways were going to contribute to a Danish baby boom nine months after the show, things took a turn for the darker with 'I Appear Missing' before 'I Think I Lost My Headache', a track that's perhaps a bit taxing for non-fans of the band. 

 

The general party was started up again with another Rated R track, 'Go With the Flow', before a rolling and chugging romp through 'Song for the Dead' sent many partying on into the night and put a definitive end to what was a very good Roskilde Festival for rock fans.