Live Review: Nine Inch Nails, Queens Of The Stone Age, Brody Dalle

Making introductions via Distillers cuts Die On A Rope and Dismantle Me, Brody Dalle's raspy howl quickly puts us on notice. Hair-wise, the punk rock vixen has traded black for white, but the music is still as volatile as always, her three-piece backing band dealing strictly in chainsaw riffs and pacing tempos. The sound pings around the filling Entertainment Centre, making the mix hot and cold, but new tracks like Don't Mess With Me still soar out to the nosebleeds. Dalle warns, “You guys are in for it after this”; we couldn't be more ready.

Judging by the industrial rigs and stage lighting, Nine Inch Nails have lost the toss, the band emerging to a sea of raised arms and balled fists. Through the smoke and apocalyptic lighting, Trent Reznor holds an intimidating presence. His muscles twitch and tighten with every roar, and even when he is bouncing up and down during Somewhat Damaged, he does so with authority. The sound is intricate yet completely suffocating; you're at a loss just how it can be created by four men. But Nine Inch Nails are masters of the machines, and when they tear through March Of The Pigs and Terrible Lie you realise they're at one with them too. The set is an intense ride within the band's mainframe, and although the strobes are trying hard to end us we can't turn away when NIN step it up with Copy Of A and The Great Destroyer, before signing off in the most epic of fashion: Wish, The Hand That Feeds, Head Like A Hole and Hurt. Thanks for coming.

Even the most one-eyed Queens Of The Stone Age fans are probably wondering how the Cali band are going to top NIN, but with opening combo You Think I Ain't Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire and No One Knows, QOTSA take our fears out to the desert and put a bullet right through them. Beneath one of the crispest high-res screens this reviewer's ever seen at a gig, the band lock into each others' grooves like they're the only five men in the room. Ginger Elvis leads proceedings nonchalantly, but it's the skill of players like multi-instrumentalist Troy Van Leeuwen and drummer Jon Theodore that makes Josh Homme's talents stand even taller. A mid-section featuring five ...Like Clockwork tracks in six songs works almost like an individual piece, and it sets the stage perfectly for a closing run that all but proves Queens are the best rock band on the planet. Sharp blasts Little Sister and Sick, Sick, Sick surround a stretched out Make It Wit Chu, a lucid ten minutes of Better Living Through Chemistry and Go With Flow take us to the depths of our minds and back, before a three-song encore, concluding with Feel Good Hit Of The Summer and A Song For The Dead, squeezes what's left from our souls.