Queens Of The Stone Age kicked off the first leg of their spectacular, symphonic Catacombs Tour last October, and last Friday night they resumed with a near-hometown show in the middle of the Joshua Tree Retreat Center. Notably, the set featured a one-off appearance from bassist/singer Nick Oliveri, who performed lead vocals for just one song, the Rated R cut "Auto Pilot." It was his first time performing with the band since 2014.
Before going on to form Queens Of The Stone Age, Josh Homme played with Oliveri in Kyuss. Oliveri performed on bass and vocals in QOTSA from 1998 to 2004, co-writing a lot of the material on Rated R and Songs For The Deaf. The story goes that Oliveri was fired from the band after Homme was led to believe that Oliveri had been acting aggressive towards fans and abusive to his girlfriend. "A couple years ago, I spoke to Nick about a rumor I heard," Homme famously told BBC Radio 1 in 2005. "I said, ‘If I ever find out that this is true, I can’t know you, man.'" In 2011, Oliveri was arrested for suspicion of felony domestic violence after a SWAT team standoff. He dodged jail time through a plea deal where he was instead given three years felony probation with 52 weeks of anger management classes and 200 hours of community service.
Despite Homme's claims, he never completely burned bridges with Oliveri; the latter joined QOTSA for "You Think I Ain’t Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire" in Portland in 2014, their first time performing together since Oliveri's firing. Oliveri also spoke highly of Homme after the two crossed paths at their bandmate Mark Lanegan's funeral in 2022.
All of this is to say: Oliveri playing with QOTSA, even for just one song, is a pretty big deal. "We've had the opportunity, the blessing, and the chance to play with some pretty amazing people, and some of them aren't here anymore," Homme told the Joshua Tree crowd. "Those people are Natasha Schneider [who died in 2008] and Mark... But one of the people that still is, that I love dearly, is mister Nick Oliveri." See a video of the performance below.
