Ever been to a hard rock dance party?

I don’t know if such a thing even exists, but that’s what it sure felt like when Queens of the Stone Age cocksurely waltzed onto Toronto’s Budweiser Stage with fellow headbangers Royal Blood in tow.

The Joshua Homme-led QotSA find themselves in an interesting position 20 years into their existence as an active entity. With new, Mark Ronson-produced album Villains, they’re obviously big enough to headline an arena/amphitheatre tour, although their back catalogue isn’t what you’d necessarily call mainstream-friendly. A lot of Queens’ songs are very heavy, to the point of “ow, my freaking ears” loud. This audible abrasiveness has been tempered somewhat by recent admissions from Mr. Homme that he really, really likes to get his groove on.

The aforementioned Villains is a gloriously weird cross-breed of distorted disco meeting punkish metal head-on. Very apropos for an enigmatic band like Queens, but potentially disorienting for fair-weather fans who may not yet have completely embraced what they’re all about. Or only know them from radio hits “No One Knows” and “Little Sister” (which QotSA did indulge us with).

To put things bluntly – not to mention politely – Josh Homme didn’t really care about what songs of his you wanted to hear. He treated the Budweiser Stage like a personal boogie space, shaking a tailfeather and strutting his stuff during lesser-known cuts such as “Smooth Sailing” and “Avon” from Queens’ self-titled 1998 debut, tunes with maximum danceability in mind. Oh, and he didn’t come to Toronto to play with our balls either, referencing a beach ball he took the air out of shortly after psychedelic slow-burner “Turnin’ on the Screw”.

When they weren’t busy throwing the rockingest sock hop The Big Smoke has seen in ages, Queens seemed to take great pride in pummelling the 16,000 attendees to the ground, a process that began first thing with a set courtesy of battering Brits Royal Blood. Mosh pits were visible as early as the bass and drums duo’s “Little Monster”, which escaladed into full-blown Wall of Deaths when “A Song for the Dead” finally shut things down for the night. It should be noted that QotSA were allowed a rare extension of Budweiser Stage’s usually-strict 11 p.m. curfew for a 2-song encore, probably because Homme sucked up by saying this was the biggest North American show they’ve ever played. Weren’t they at the much more spacious Air Canada Centre in 2013?

About the only reprieve anyone got from all the swaying and sweating was the slightly-slower “Villains of Circumstance”, but even that had violently blinding strobe lights that sent the crowd into cathartic seizures. What may have been most striking to me and my lingering impression is how Homme busted moves while puffing a prodigious number of cigarettes. You could say Toronto has a brand new “Dart Guy”. As well as rock monarch; all hail Queens of the Stone Age!