Nick Oliveri, The Boileroom

Rome, June 3, and Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA) have just walked on stage at Rock in Roma, one of Italy’s biggest music festivals.

Led by the band’s daunting frontman Josh Homme, they rip into Millionaire from their 2002 hit album Songs for the Deaf. Thousands go wild at the city’s Capannelle racecourse.

The same night, more than 1,000 miles away, another man has just walked on stage and kicked into Millionaire.

But in stark contrast, former QOTSA bassist Nick Oliveri’s audience is little more than 100 devotees, packed into Guildford’s rock and roll refuge, The Boileroom.

Does he care? Not a bit of it.

Now touring his all acoustic one-man solo show, Oliveri – complete with his distinctive shiny bald head and trademark six-inch goatee – paints the picture of a man finally at peace.

In January 2004, he was unceremoniously booted out of QOTSA after his relationship with Homme broke down.

While the band has ascended to headline status, due to top the bill at this year’s Reading and Leeds festival in August, Oliveri’s career has been characterised by false starts.

Tuesday’s show at The Boileroom (June 3) was the third in a 19-date tour in support of his new single Human Cannonball Explodes and new album Leave Me Alone, due later this year.

It’s a refreshing new beginning for Oliveri.

His 50-minute set draws variously from his 20 years in the business, including Kyuss classic Green Machine, while a handful of new material is well-received by the knowledgeable audience.

But it is Oliveri’s QOTSA numbers they have come for, having co-written the band’s 2000 album Rated R and the aforementioned Songs for the Deaf with Homme.

Cheers greet acoustic takes on songs like Gonna Leave You, Another Love Song and Auto Pilot, sparking what feels like a boy scouts’ campfire singalong, only with far more beards.

Oliveri invites a dozen or so fans up on stage with him for a rousing rendition of QOTSA drug anthem Feel Good Hit of the Summer, which features the rhythmic chant of ‘nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol’.

But opening gambit Millionaire remains Oliveri’s most distinctive contribution, one he performed with QOTSA in April for the first time in 10 years during a gig in Portland, Oregon.

While his exile from the band seems set to continue, Oliveri’s career and outlook appears the healthiest it has been in the best part of a decade.

His show at The Boileroom underlines his talent to go it alone.

James Chapple

Originally published in the Surrey Advertiser, 06/06/14