In 2007, Queens of the Stone Age played 115 shows to promote their fifth studio album, Era Vulgaris.
They played clubs, theatres, arenas and festival dates over the course of the year, but one event in particular stands out – an intimate show 2300 feet under the surface of the earth.
The date was November 20, 2007. They’d played Löwensaal in Nuremberg the night before, a venue which holds around 1500 people and doesn’t necessitate the need for safety equipment for fans and performers alike.
(Image credit: Interscope)
“We were tired of the same old concert experience, so management got us some interesting ones – a castle, a church, and old slaughterhouse,” said the band’s former sound engineer Patrick ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson in an interview with Heil Sound. “We played an old salt mine in Germany.”
Their label Interscope Records held a contest to give away 300 tickets to fans to see the band play the Erlebnisbergwerk Glückauf in Sondershausen. It would take around a day to transport the equipment down into the cavernous venue and allow it to acclimate to the surroundings. The fans, who looked like Fraggle Rock’s Doozers in their matching yellow hard hats and hi-vis jackets, were met with their own logistical challenges when navigating their way to the bottom of the facility.
“I play rock n’ roll to have that classic moment and you never know when something like that is coming,” said Josh Homme. “But this had classic written all over it from the word ‘go’, you know? We were looking for something good to do that was off-kilter and bizarre, somewhere to play that would be very special.”
Queen of the Stone Age in 2007 and a German salt mine (Image credit: Aaron Lynett/Toronto Star via Getty Images | Becker & Bredel/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
“What I like is that there’s so much hard work done in here,” he added of the cavernous room. “This place exists from hard work. It’s nice to throw a bit of a party here too, celebrating miners… and I don’t mean young kids.”
Ba-dum-tss. The band played a stripped-down show, opting to change up their set list for the special occasion.
“This place was so psychedelic,” remembers Patrick. “The excavation machines left spiral patterns everywhere. The idea was to play a semi-acoustic set – it quickly turned a lot heavier with everyone getting excited.
“My mind got the better of me after being a half-mile closer to the centre of the earth. Maybe we shouldn’t be rocking out. What if we cause some seismic destruction?
“An epic rock ‘n’ roll death – what a way to go,” he added. “Looking around we saw the giant machines and quickly realised these things eat rock and spit it out. We weren’t going to cause a cave-in making rock; these machines ate rock and they were bigger than all of us and our gear combined.”
Their 14-song set featured songs from Era Vulgaris, as well as some, ahem, deep cuts for the event and covers of Billy Idol’s White Wedding and Tom Waits’ Goin’ Out West.
“Playing semi-acoustic is great for us and the songs translate,” explains Josh. “We did do some rehearsals as we felt this place was so unique we should do songs that we never play or quite often don’t play, and we were changing them up until last night and it involved rewriting stuff. You know how Elvis would do those medleys of like, five songs? It’s just like that, except it’s not fat and in a jumpsuit.”
The set was filmed for future release. A teaser trailer was released in early 2008 followed by interviews and a clip of Make It Wit Chu, but footage of the full show remains “locked in a vault” somewhere in Germany.
Following the performance, the frontman and guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen joked about the next unusual venue they could play.
“Our next record is going to be called Hot Lava, so we feel we need to play a volcano,” said Josh. “I think we’re officially the most underground rock band in the world.”
It’s a good job no one mentioned that Finnish metallers Agonizer had played 4169 feet underground at the Pyhäsalmi Mine in Pyhäjärvi, Finland just a few months previously. But still, it’s an impressive feat.
Almost two decades later, the band would make music history of their own by becoming the first band to officially perform deep in the Catacombs of Paris on July 8, 2024.
Maybe that volcano show isn’t too far away.
