All music venues have strict curfews these days, but do the rules really apply if you’re a globetrotting rock band?

It’s been exactly 20 years since I last saw Queens of the Stone Age, both I and the band have aged a bit in that time, but as the band came on to Peggy Lee’s Smile, there was no doubt we were very pleased to see each other again.

At a sold out Dreamland in Margate, at the end of a hot June day, just yards from the seafront this felt the perfect start to a strong, if not in my opinion, classic set list.

I’d have liked a few more of the classics from the early albums, Feel Good Hit of the Summer felt like an obvious choice and a missed opportunity given the venue, but as My God is the Sun kicked in as dusk fell, followed soon after by Battery Acid and Smooth Sailing I forgot all about the hits they could have played (3’s & 7’s, Burn the Witch, just a couple of suggestions from the crowd around me if you’re reading Josh).

For the uninitiated, let me take a step back for a moment.

Queens of the Stone Age are an American hard rock band fronted by Josh Homme, the only constant member over the years, but its line-up has also featured the likes of Dave Grohl, Nirvana and Foo Fighters, and Nick Oliveri, clothing optional.

And unsurprisingly, as Homme greeted the crowd he quipped, “What an amazing place, I never knew this existed.” Hailing from California I’m not surprised he’s not a regular at Dreamland, but I think there was a significant part of the audience who had travelled from far and wide thinking the same.

So let’s take a moment to review Dreamland as a live music venue, and I’ve been in more than my fair share of them over the years.

The bars, plentiful and the queues short. The toilets, likewise. Food outlets, a decent range including vegan and gluten free options. The only epic queue I saw was for the one merchandise stand to the side of the stage.

There were several thousand people in siitu, yet it felt like a small, intimate gig, Homme picking people out of the crowd to hold conversations - I hope Ian got his sunglasses back - and this kind of event opens the delights of Dreamland and indeed Margate to a new and wider audience, which has got to be a good thing!

I don’t know who is in charge of booking acts for Dreamland’s Summer Series this year, but they’ve done a heck of a job and if you’re interested there’s plenty still to come this summer, check it out here.

Right, back to the music, before we get on to the Queens of the Stone Age finale and that so-called $10k bill, a shout out to the support band Coach Party.

The British four-piece did a cracking job of warming up the crowd, they’ve got a tour and an album coming at the end of this year, All I Wanna Do is Hate has already been added to my Spotify playlist.

Now for that QOTSA finale. Having played a selection of ‘the new stuff’ it’s unsurprising that the first couple of the chords of Go With the Flow saw the crowd come alive like it hadn’t done until this point.

Followed up with the stone cold classic that is No One Knows, this crowd was warmed up and ready to party.

Sadly the powers that be had other ideas, because, having waited for at least an hour for QOTSA to take to the stage after Coach Party, it was now 11pm and there was a hard curfew in place.

When I say they pulled the plug, I mean they literally just cut the PA system as the band geared up for their final song, Song for the Dead from what is probably still their seminal album, Songs for the Deaf.

So what do you do when you’ve travelled from California to Margate and you’ve got thousands of fans screaming “Let them play”? You say, “Sod it, what’s it gonna cost for us to play this final song? $10k dollars? Ok, we’re doing it anyway.”

And they did, no PA, no stage lights, in the gloom of the night, over curfew, the band refused to leave the stage and launched into Song for the Dead with just a couple of stage amps to belt it out, no mics, but the voices of several thousand obstinate fans.

In many ways it was the perfect end to the evening as Homme launched himself through the drumkit.

The band have never been ones for following the rules.

20 years ago they incited a mosh pit that still lives large in my memory, I still have the scar, and 20 years on the song remains the same.