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What do you get when high octane motorsport madness meets live entertainment? SEMA Fest. Introduced as an offshoot of the SEMA tradeshow in 2023, the one-day event returned to the Las Vegas Convention Center on November 7 with a collision of drift demos, beer-soaked crowds and guitar riffage for the weekend.
Following the four-day expo, we set out to experience this final car-enthusiast hurrah. What we didn’t expect was a reignited primal love for Queens of the Stone Age and a front-row seat to the Optima Unleashed, where professional drifters flirted with disaster on every power slide, leaving us with sprinkled specks of tire rubber all over our clothes and a nose full of burnout smoke.
The Globe of Death served as another unforgettable spectacle. The Urias Family, a 100-year-old troupe of daredevils, took to their 16-foot steel cage, zooming around on motorcycles like they had a death wish, and the crowd ate it up. The intensity cranked up when they added extra bikes, and during the finale, three daredevil ladies stood in the center like a living target for the riders. It was as close as you could get to the circus.
But let’s talk music. Neon Trees kicked things off with its catchy, bubblegum pop, a nod to the mid-2010s indie boom and a genuinely fun opening for what was to follow. The real heat came when the Black Crowes took the stage. Frontman Chris Robinson stalked the platform in full rock god regalia, wearing his decades-old grunge like a badge. The man was a revelation—thrashing around in a mix of heavyweight silver rings and necklaces, a band tee and blazer combo, and oozing with an air of cool.
“It’s a beautiful night,” he said. “Friends, rock bands, and the smell of burning tires in the air.” The band then ripped through “Sister Luck,” a Southern-tinged blues track that slowed things down for fans.
But the night belonged to Queens of the Stone Age. At 8:25 p.m., the main stage went dark and an orchestral overture began, an unexpected prelude that got the crowd buzzing. Josh Homme strolled to the mic and announced, “We came here to get sh**faced and dance with you. And this is how we begin.”
The band tore through a familiar setlist including, “You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire," “No One Knows” and “Go With The Flow” like it was still 2002, and the crowd collectively lost its minds. But it was “Mexicola," that fat, bass-heavy groove from Queens' first album, that really put everyone into a trance. The band played like it was a private show for each person, no fluff, just the hard-hitting rock that put QOTSA on the genre’s map.
The rock quintet moved with familiar ease. Every riff, every wail, every drum sequence furthering them into the audience's mind and making them move. It advanced into light mosh pits and friendly singalongs. Between Homme ripping a cigarette on stage while jamming, and his bandmates offering the same mix of swagger and musicianship, this was the ideal way to close out SEMA Fest. In the end, all roads led back to their rock ’n’ roll roots.
English (US) ·