The year is 2011. The place, backstage at Queens Of The Stone Age’s Munich show. One lucky fan is meeting the band but, OH NO, sadly the fan has been stricken with what appears to be appendicitis. That’s gotta take the edge off hanging out with Josh Homme and the gang, right?
Probably time to bail on the aftershow and head to the nearest hospital, yeah? It’s not like the band themselves are going to operate on you right here in the backstage area, is it? Haha! No way… because – as far as we’re aware – they’re not medical practitioners or anything so… oh wait, they seem to be performing the operation themselves anyway. Okay, cool.
It’s one of the strangest stories in rock – and it’s been forgotten by almost absolutely everyone. The story itself originated from the band themselves when guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen made the claim in an interview with Faster Louder.
Troy asked the interviewer, "Do you wanna hear something fucked up?” and then continued to outline the bizarre situation, saying, “There was one time when we performed an appendectomy backstage in Munich. We forgot the anaesthesia. I do know how to perform these operations, but I'd had too much to drink that day. But she's okay.”
ALRIIIGHTY THEN.
When asked for more information, the guitarist replied, "It's actually a legal matter… it's a medical slash legal matter and I can't say much more than that."
Okay folks, everything seems to be in order here. No more follow-up questions at all. Actually wait, it’s been seven years and we still have questions. Huge questions. So, if you’re the fan from this story, then please get in touch. We really want to know what the hell you were thinking.
Also, while we’re here, if you’re in a band and have performed rudimentary backstage surgery on a fan then we should probably have a chat about that, too.
@johnlongbottom
(P.S: Just to be clear, all this is 10000 per cent alleged and was probably just a bored musician winding up an interviewer to amuse himself towards the end of a long tour – it is fun to think about it happening, though.)