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“We been together so long you’d think we’d get sick of fucking each other,” Josh Homme smiles, “but that just ain’t the way.”
The ‘we’ in question, it seems, is the fandom that’s stayed with Queens of the Stone Age for 27 years and to whom he pays repeated tribute during this contradictory arena show. In some ways, this is the Homme of old, shorn of the grey goatee he donned around the release of brilliantly brutal new album ‘In Times New Roman’ and throwing moves – one leg cocked, his arms pointed campily to the sky – that remind you they used to call him ‘the ginger Elvis’.
Yet that album capped off a period rocked by what he euphemistically described to NME as the “extreme ups and downs of life”, and he exudes a curious uncertainty tonight. At one point, he admits he’s “fucking nervous”, which is some distance from the barking ringmaster persona that defined a Glastonbury 2023 performance so incendiary that footage of its seething circle pit went viral. There, he demanded the crowd “fuck shit up together”. Here, he ruminates on the difficulty of love (“I’m terrible at it”) and precedes one gooey monologue with the confession: “When I get scared or unsure, I talk too much.”
Musically, of course, he’s on firmer ground: there’s no denying that the five-piece are one of the greatest rock bands on the planet. He cackles dirtily before scything through new track ‘Carnavoyeur’, pounds out a ‘No One Knows’ so massive the audience bellows its riff as though it’s a football chant and decorates ‘Straight Jacket Fitting’, another newbie, with a fresh pyschobilly jangle. The 50-year-old even manages to maintain his word-perfect delivery of the latter when he surfs the front few rows.
It’s this well-honed crowd-pleasing, perhaps, that earns QOTSA the right to extended jam band makeovers, which are by turns immersive (a swampy ‘Better Living Through the Chemistry’) and politely received. Has anyone gone to a gig, ever, and thought, “I hope they do a drum solo in the encore”?
Still, the unifying ‘Make It Wit You’ and breakneck closer ‘Song for the Dead’ easily redress the set’s balance and it seems a performer of Homme’s charisma can’t help but entertain. “It’s only because of you that we’re here tonight,” the frontman gushes, before catching himself. “If you think that’s cheesy,” he adds, harnessing that ringmaster energy once more, “go fuck yourself.”
‘Regular John’
‘No One Knows’
‘Smooth Sailing’
‘My God Is the Sun’
‘Emotion Sickness’
‘If I Had a Tail’
‘Carnavoyeur’
‘The Way You Used to Do’
‘Better Living Through Chemistry’
‘The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret’
‘Paper Machete’
‘Domesticated Animals’
‘I Sat by the Ocean’
‘Straight Jacket Fitting’
‘Make It Wit Chu’
‘Little Sister’
‘God Is in the Radio’
‘Go With the Flow’
‘A Song for the Dead’
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“I received plenty of comments saying it was far too soon to ‘go solo’,” Geese frontman Cameron Winter told NME last year while reflecting on how people initially reacted to his decision to branch out on his own. “Most likely because a lot of folks assume that ‘solo albums’ only happen once a band has passed its peak and that they usually feel like uninspired cash grabs.”
Honestly, everyone is trying to earn a living however they can these days, yet no one expected a Geese side project to generate any real financial payoff in 2024. “Just so you know,” he went on, “my solo album is different: because barely anyone knows my band, I am young and comfortable living with my parents and I have the freedom to follow any ideas that interest me.”
Brooklyn indie followers and former NME cover stars Geese were gaining real momentum when their second album ‘3D Country’ mixed cowboy psychedelia with a jazzy, art-punk energy that had already captured the attention of many UK 6 Music dads back in 2023, but who could have predicted what came next? Geese have become one of the most talked-about bands of 2025 and are expected to dominate multiple end-of-year lists with the ambitious and full-range rock of ‘Getting Killed’. Yet the moment that set the stage for this rise was Winter’s Lou Reed-inspired debut solo record ‘Heavy Metal’.
A handful of late-night US television appearances and a spot on Jools Holland acted as a welcoming doorway for the world to see what this 23-year-old can do far beyond what many twice or three times his age are capable of. Now the sold-out Roundhouse audience made up of indie teens, art school regulars, fans who traveled across Europe and seasoned listeners reacts with a collective breath as a slight opening in the stage curtain reveals the silhouette of Winter seated at a piano. First comes a spark of excitement, then a sudden hush.
There is no flashy social media moment, no chatter overriding the music and almost no sea of raised phones. There is a sincerity to how the night unfolds. The Geese singer barely turns toward the audience. “Turn around!” someone calls out from the balcony at one stage. “Is this not enough for you all?” Winter teases back. For some, maybe it was more than enough. At least four people appear to faint around the warm and crowded Roundhouse while the room stands in absolute focus as Winter moves through the dreamlike storytelling of ‘Try As I May’, the emotional swirl of ‘The Rolling Stones’, the bright lift of ‘Love Takes Miles’ and the sermon-like stomp of ‘Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed)’. When he reaches the intense and spiritually charged ‘$0’, even the most skeptical hipster might be convinced that “I’m not kidding, God is actually real”. In that moment, it feels as though we all understand.
The entire performance can be summed up in how ‘Drinking Age’ unfolds. It starts softly with a gentle touch on the keys before erupting into a thunderous attack on the Steinway that could echo into next year, followed by a long, open cry aimed toward the sky. Winter somehow manages to blend something minimal with something enormous, something grounded with something cosmic, a delicate approach that hits with staggering force as he reaches toward ideas of existence, heaven, hell and everything surrounding them.
Winter could recite the phone book and still leave a crowd stunned. He carries the spirit of a post-punk Rufus Wainwright you can play alongside The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, a Gen Z Tom Waits for listeners exhausted by TikTok overload, a new Nick Cave who arrives at exactly the moment he is needed. His voice feels older than his years yet perfectly suited to express the concerns and emotions of his own generation.
We will continue praising Geese endlessly because they deserve it. They are an extraordinary burst of musical creativity that goes far beyond what their lineup would ever imply, and along with Fontaines D.C., they are poised to become one of the decade’s essential bands. Still, tonight offers something quieter and more intimate. Cameron Winter stands completely on his own power, talent and magnetism, proving himself a rising force who can hold an entire room with only his voice, a piano and an entire future waiting for him.
‘Try as I May’
‘Emperor XIII in Shades’
‘The Rolling Stones’
‘Love Takes Miles’
‘Drinking Age’
‘Serious World’
‘Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed)’
‘If You Turn Back Now’
‘Vines’
‘Nina + Field of Cops’
‘$0’
‘Take It With You’
‘Cancer of the Skull’
