Nick Oliveri at the Voodoo Lounge, 3 July 2015

The bad boy reputation gets doled out pretty regularly in the music world, but if anybody’s earned this dubious moniker, it’s Nick Oliveri. The former Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age bassist has over the years cultivated a reputation for wild antics and genuine aggression. This all came to a head a few years back when Olivei was arrested on charges of domestic abuse against his then wife, following an armed standoff at his house that involved a SWAT team being sent in to bring him down.

But since that Oliveri seems to have mellowed out a bit. He’s reunited with QotSA for a guest appearance on their last album, and been involved (on and off) in the on-going Kyuss reunion (now called Vista Chino for legal reasons). His current tour is a series of solo acoustic shows, curating a songbook of rock, metal and punk tunes. “You heard of death metal and death punk,” said Oliveri, not long after taking to the stage, “well this is death acoustic.”

At this point the Voodoo lounge was still ringing from support band Mother Mooch, an appropriately chosen sludge metal act with a clear Black Sabbath and Kyuss influence on display, who drenched the venue in doom laden riffs and monumental feedback. With such wonderfully noisy support, it seemed a bit like one lad with an acoustic guitar would seem a little tame in comparison.

But Oliveri made it clear then even without  backing band, a towing stack of amps, or an even an electric guitar, he was damn well going to make as much noise as possible.  He dived into his back catalogue of writing credits hard and fast, with renditions of Kyuss’s Green Machine and QotSA’s Gonna Leave You and Six Shooter kicking things into immediate overdrive.

Reworking such heavy songs for an acoustic guitar should seem like an exercise in futility, but somehow Oliveri pulled it off. In place of complex licks, finger picking, or any other technical term you care to mention, Oliveri simply hammers out basic chords as hard and loud as possible, with his vocals ringing form a deep husky growl to an ear piercing scream. There should have been gaps left by the absence of all the other instruments, but somehow Oliveri’s raw ferocity covered over the gaps with seems like sheer force of will.

For the most part of his set, Oliveri seems to have left his bad boy schtick behind, and replaced it with a laid back geniality. He took requests from the crowd, invited half the venue up on stage to sing along to Feel God Hit of the Summer, and somehow managed to craft a furious level of sound while keeping things intimate. But things took a turn for the slightly uncomfortable when the more notorious side of Oliveri’s personality started to emerge in between song banter. Most notably he cracked numerous jokes about his ex-wife, who, as mentioned earlier, Oliveri was arrested for beating up. Petitions to boycott gigs have been established for less despicable behaviour.

But abrasive personality aside, Oliveri knows how to deliver a show. As he went on his playing become even faster, his screams more piercing and the sound, somehow, got even bigger. He steamrolled into a version of the Ramones Endless Vacation and shredded his way through a fiery rendition of Surf and Destroy by ‘80s hardcore punks Bl’ast. He missed chords or hit flats, forgot lyrics, improvised solos that weren’t more than couple of notes played over and over, but none of this stopped him for powering on through, chugging out crowd pleasing song after song.

An all-acoustic punk/metal show may seem like a bit of a dud substitute for a full band gig, but Oliveri made it his own so well that the promise of him going back to electric almost seems unappealing.