twitter.com/QueenWillRock/status/885175403710566400Queen @queenwillrock
“...the ultimate tribute is to Freddie, most notably in the ballad “Love of My Life,” It brought tears to my eyes."
tinyurl.com/QUEENene CONCERT REVIEW: Queen + Adam Lambert a royal tribute to Freddie
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The last time Queen toured America with Freddie Mercury, I was 11 years old.
I was was too young to attend, but my older cousin saw the band perform that gig in 1982 at the Myriad in Oklahoma City.
That tour was in support of “Hot Space,” a revolutionary album that pushed the dance-pop envelope but was a commercial disappointment.
I grew up digging Queen and discovering each album by album. I’d mow lawns in the summer in Enid and spend the cash collecting the rock royalty’s back catalog, including mail-ordered rarities and outtakes.
In the comprehensive process, I basically heard every recorded live concert. Queen’s pinnacle performance was in 1985 at Live Aid.
The bigger Queen got, the more the band performed. As Mercury’s voice became more seasoned, he’d sing the mid-range with drummer Roger Taylor taking over high end.
When Queen released the “Highlander” soundtrack hodgepodge “A Kind of Magic” album a year later, I landed a recording of the 1986 Knebworth concert, which proved to be Mercury’s final show.
After Freddie’s death in 1991, bassist John Deacon retired.
While George Michael’s cover of “Somebody to Love” gave me hope of a revamped Queen, that never happened. A later collaboration with ex-Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers was an odd fit stylistically.
That brings us to Adam Lambert of “American Idol” fame. During the Queen + Adam Lambert performance Sunday in Kansas City, he addressed the elephant in the room with equal parts respect and flamboyance: He’s not Freddie Mercury, and he doesn’t pretend to be.
When it came to Mercury, his showmanship was incomparable.
Freddie was the greatest rock vocalist in history. The 35-year-old Lambert thankfully doesn’t mimic Mercury note for note — nor does he deliver with Mercury’s same powerful vocal command — but he add creative flourishes and sometimes, surprisingly, even shows off more range.
I was thrilled to see the remaining Queen members in concert for the first time. Virtuoso Brian May, who holds a doctorate in astrophysics, is one of my top five all-time guitarists, playing on his homemade “Red Special” guitar with a six*&@^# coin for a pick.
Taylor once saw Frank Kelly Freas’ cover of “Astounding Science Fiction,” and this image of a robot holding the dead body of a man inspired artwork for Queen’s 1977 “News of the World” album cover.
That iconic robot was resurrected in Queen’s new live shows with Lambert.
With Lambert, Taylor performs the duet singing the late, great David Bowie’s vocals on “Under Pressure” in another homage to a fallen rock star.
But the ultimate tribute is to Freddie. His spirit is memorialized in video spotlights, most notably in the ballad “Love of My Life,” in which May invites the audience in a heartwarming singalong with an acoustic guitar. It brought tears to my eyes.
As Queen fans know, the bombastic, operatic interlude of “Bohemian Rhapsody” is always played in concert via recording. This time the video accompaniment was embellished with an extensive laser light show to great effect. With longtime live keyboardist Spike Edney playing Freddie’s piano parts, the band sounded great.
Since I missed seeing the original Queen lineup as a child, we taught our children a proper school of rock lesson for our family’s first arena rock concert. God save the Queen.