Sir Elton John told Josh Homme to “enjoy playing to all of three people” when they went up against each other at Glastonbury Festival.
Josh’s band Queen of The Stone Age headlined the Other Stage in the Sunday night slot at the iconic music event this summer while Elton performed on the main Pyramid Stage at the same time – and the rocker has revealed his pal made a cheeky joke before they went on.
Speaking to NME, Josh explained: “He gave me a gentle kiss on the cheek and said, ‘Enjoy playing to all three people’, which I thought was amazing. I laughed, but then when we walked out I thought, ‘Oh my God’.”
Josh revealed the ‘Rocket Man’ star was right and the band ended up playing to a much smaller audience than expected because so many festival-goers had gone to watch Elton’s set.
He added: “There was a lot of people, but normally there would probably be a lot more. It was an interesting thing to walk out to at first. That was some accurate [stuff] right there, that was a good prediction.”
The band were previously pitched against another huge headliner – Beyonce – when they played at the festival back in 2011 and Josh admitted both were difficult sets.
He explained: “Glastonbury is always an interesting experience, and especially the last few times for us because they always ask us to do the hard job. Other than driving the sewage truck, playing against Elton [this year] is one of the tougher jobs, as is playing against Beyonce. They were both tough gigs that were really fun, but tough because you don’t know when you walk out if anyone is going to be there.”
Queen of The Stone Age released their eighth album ‘In Times New Roman … ‘ in June six years after their previous record 2017’s ‘Villains’ and the frontman went on to insist he hopes there won’t be such a long gap between their next offering.
He added: “I think we should be making something [new]. The mantra of the last five years was, ‘It won’t be long now!’ That needs to pertain to making things too. I certainly think we should make more, faster-er, better-er.”