Queens of the Stone Age adds new 2018 tour dates, starting in San Diego

Nov. 6, 2017 1:28 PM PT

There’s good news for fans of Queens of the Stone Age.

The hard-rocking band’s newly announced 2018 Villains tour leg will include 17 new shows across North America beginning with a pair of March concerts at San Diego’s Observatory North Park on March 21 and 22.

The just-announced shows also include stops in Honolulu, Austin, New Orleans, Miami, Calgary, and Rochester, N.Y.

No support act has been announced yet for the San Diego shows, although Wolf Alice will open the April 24-May 2 dates, while Royal Blood will open the May 17-25 dates.

The tour is in support of Queens’ chart-topping new album, “Villains,” which was released in August. The Coachella Valley-bred band is led by Josh Homme.

Tickets for all the new dates go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. local time in all cities, except Austin, where tickets go on sale Nov. 17 at 10 a.m.

Ticket prices for the San Diego shows have not been announced yet. A fan club pre-sale will begin Wednesday at 10 a.m. for the Observatory North Park shows, followed by a venue pre-sale at 10 a.m. Thursday.

Queens Of The Stone Age 2018 tour dates

3/21/18 and 3/22/18 The Observatory North Park, San Diego, CA

4/24/18 Austin360 Amphitheater, Austin, TX **

4/25/18 The Pavilion at the Irving Music Factory, Irving, TX **

4/26/18 Municipal Auditorium, Shreveport, LA **

4/27/18 Saenger Theatre, New Orleans, LA **

4/27-29/18 Welcome to Rockville, Jacksonville, FL

5/1/18 Bayfront Park Amphitheater, Miami, FL **

5/2/18 Mahaffey Theater, Saint Petersburg, FL **

5/17/18 Scotiabank Saddledome, Calgary, AB +

5/18/18 Rogers Place, Edmonton, AB +

5/20/18 MTS Centre, Winnipeg, MB +

5/22/18 Breese Stevens Field, Madison, WI +

5/24/18 Budweiser Gardens, London, ON +

5/25/18 Rochester Dome Arena, Rochester, NY +

** with Wolf Alice

+ with Royal Blood

Music

George Varga

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first prize-winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 and 2023 San Diego Press Club awards and a double first prize-winner at the 2022 and 2023 San Diego Society of Professional Journalists awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.”