8.11.19 Chicage and St. Paul reviews
Aug 11, 2019 8:07:05 GMT -5
Post by cassie on Aug 11, 2019 8:07:05 GMT -5
Review: Queen and Adam Lambert reigned triumphant during a dazzling United Center performance
By Althea Legaspi Chicago Tribune |
Aug 10, 2019 | 7:31 AM
Adam Lambert, left, and Brian May of Queen + Adam Lambert perform at the United Center on Friday, Aug. 9, 2019, in Chicago. (Rob Grabowski/Invision/Rob Grabowski/Invision/AP)
A massive crown rose from the stage before Queen + Adam Lambert appeared at their sold-out show at United Center on Friday. It set a grand tone for their Chicago Rhapsody Tour stop and befitted their material, which was reinforced by visual displays that included pulsating psychedelic laser lights and set designs that mirrored the lyrical and musical range of the band, from the intimate to the fantastical.
Queen is no stranger to musical extravagance; it’s in those spaces where the band pushed excess and experimentation that some of its most memorable work was born, coaxed further by the group’s erstwhile frontman and one of rock 'n' roll’s greatest singers, Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991. And while Mercury remains irreplaceable, Lambert’s talents and interpretations have proved to be a formidable match since he began touring with Queen in 2014.
On Friday he added theatrical flourishes and injected campy, knowing winks during songs such as “Killer Queen,” where he primly crossed his legs while fanning himself, and the bombastic “Bicycle Race,” where he sat on a spinning motorcycle as he hit falsettos. Lambert’s delivery was not about mimicking the icon but rather about reverence, his gratitude for the position evident when he thanked Queen’s co-founders, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, and paid homage to Mercury.
“Do you love Freddie,” Lambert asked the audience, which responded with cheerful affirmations. “See, that is what’s cool. I’m a fan, too. And there’s no replacing Freddie ... Mercury. I’m only here to celebrate Freddie and Queen with you tonight.”
While Lambert was one focal point with his showmanship, sparkly costumes and compelling vocals, which perfectly melded with May and Taylor’s harmonies, May’s center stage moments were equally engaging. During an acoustic run performed at a mini stage that extended from a catwalk into the audience, he delivered a poignant, intimate “Love of My Life,” which closed with a projection of Mercury singing the outro.
May’s intricate solos drove the band’s churning tracks, but it was his highlighted solo turn where he appeared atop an asteroid prop that went next level. With the guitarist bathed in red lighting, his soaring melodies soundtracked a cosmic backdrop that made it appear like he was being propelled through space, a fitting display for Dr. May, who has an astrophysics PhD.
Meanwhile, Taylor took lead for the propulsive, revving “I’m in Love With My Car,” and duetted with Lambert during the riveting “Under Pressure.” May, Taylor and Lambert’s harmonies buoyed the set, particularly on standouts such as the a cappella openings of “I Want it All,” “Fat Bottomed Girls” and “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which transformed into an audience-wide sing-a-long.
Queen didn’t need a victory lap, as its rock 'n' roll pantheon status has long been evident through the band’s ubiquitous presence in pop culture over the course of five decades. If anything, its fan base has grown since last fall’s release of the long-gestating, Academy Award-winning biopic, “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Still, the United Center encore, which included “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions,” was triumphant.
Althea Legaspi is a freelance critic.
ctc-arts@chicagotribune.com
Link to article: www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-ent-queen-adam-lambert-review-0812-20190810-pa5nkuf5dnamllmvksumr43t2a-story.html
Queen + Adam Lambert bask in post-‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ glow at high-energy X show
By Ross Raihala | rraihala@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press
PUBLISHED: August 10, 2019 at 10:45 pm | UPDATED: August 11, 2019 at 9:18 am
Crazy what a blockbuster movie can do for concert ticket sales.
Of course, Queen has been doing big business with “American Idol” vet Adam Lambert on vocals since 2012. But Saturday’s Queen + Adam Lambert concert stop at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center crackled with newfound energy and joy, and topped their impressive show in the same venue two years ago. More people showed up, too, with a crowd of about 16,000 filling every seat in the hockey arena, including several VIP skyboxes built into the stage. (While I’m sure it was a cool way to experience the show, those fans were essentially paying a whole lot extra for obstructed view seats.)
The breathtaking success of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which grossed a record-breaking $903 million worldwide, clearly attracted some new, younger fans to Saturday’s concert, including a surprising number of under-10 kids clearly happy to be there (as opposed to begrudgingly dragged there by overeager parents). And, really, that youth appeal isn’t too surprising, given that Queen tended to write and record songs with massive, obvious hooks that transcended language and earned fans around the world. A few songs even jumped over into sports and graduated to jock jam status.
To be clear, Lambert is no Freddie Mercury and he’s the first to tell you. “I’m a huge fan, too,” he said early in the show. “I’m up here tonight only to celebrate the irreplaceable, one and only Freddie Mercury.” But Lambert is terrific at offering up his own version of the electric, unforgettable energy the late Mercury brought to the stage. And his soaring vocals don’t fully imitate Mercury’s, but rather suggest them, in the best possible way.
Nearly all of the up-for-it crowd was seated by 8 p.m. and cheered each ambient guitar noise and fog machine blast that came from the enormous stage, which was ringed by a massive lighted crown inspired by Queen’s logo. Fifteen minutes later, that crown ascended to the rafters as the band tore into “Now I’m Here,” “Seven Seas of Rhye” and “Keep Yourself Alive.”
Lambert took every opportunity he could to strike a campy rock pose and indulged in several costume changes, each a tornado of ruffles and leather and spikes. He’s also established a clear chemistry with guitarist Brian May, who has always come across as a guy eager to play for any crowd. (So much so that his pre-Lambert vocalist was the utterly ill-advised Paul Rodgers.) Drummer Roger Taylor delivered as well, even if he forced us to endure “I’m in Love with My Car.”
From there, the trio — augmented by three additional touring musicians — nailed all the big, bombastic smashes, from “Killer Queen” to “Somebody to Love” to “Another One Bites the Dust” to “Fat Bottomed Girls.” But they also brought some intimacy to the arena when May sat at the edge of the runway that extended into the crowd and gently crooned “Love of My Life” backed only by his acoustic guitar and thousands of impromptu backup singers. Both “’39” and “Doing All Right” got the stripped-down treatment with the core trio all in place for a rollicking “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”
The main set’s closer “Bohemian Rhapsody” and the encore of “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” left Queen fans, both old and new, beaming.
Thanks to hit biopic, Queen rules in St. Paul
Singer Adam Lambert lets guitarist Brian May be the star of the revived British rockers.
By Jon Bream Star Tribune
August 11, 2019 — 2:42pm
“God Save the Queen” is the British national anthem. If Queen, the British rock band, had an international anthem, it might be called “Thank God for the Movies.”
First, there was “Wayne’s World” in 1992, and that indelible scene of Wayne, Garth and their friends crammed into an old AMC Pacer banging their heads to a cassette of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” That was a year after Queen singer Freddie Mercury had died and six years after the band’s final tour. Welcome back to the top of the charts, with a song recorded in 1975.
Then last year came the blockbuster biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which grossed more than $1 billion worldwide and led to four Oscars, including best actor for an American who didn’t even attempt to sing like the incomparable Mercury (whose original vocals were dubbed in).
Queen is now bigger than ever — especially in the United States, which never embraced the quartet the way Europe did. Like the Beatles, Queen is having a massive afterlife. Unlike the Fab Four, though, Queen still tours as Queen, with two original members, three hired guns and 2009 “American Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert on lead vocals.
Saturday’s Queen concert at Xcel Energy Center sold out faster than you can ask “Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?” Even though this is Lambert’s third tour with the band since 2014, it felt different this time. Queen’s enviable catalog of hits has remained popular, but the biopic brought out the personalities in the band, especially lead guitarist Brian May. And he, not Lambert, was the star of Saturday’s show.
Whenever May stepped forward to take a solo, he received a tremendous ovation from the more than 16,000 fans. Lambert was careful to let May dominate the catwalk extending from the stage. In fact, there were only a few times when Lambert hit the runway without May.
May sat by himself as the end of the runway, plucking a 12-string acoustic guitar singing “Love of My Life.” A song featured in the biopic, it felt more meaningful this time than two years ago when Queen played in St. Paul because we now know the back story.
Last time, Lambert was more of a look-at-me-now ham, wearing delightfully garish outfits and camping it up like he was auditioning for a drag show without a drag costume. This time, his outfits were wonderfully sparkly (gold lame with ruffled shirt, black leather jacket with rhinestone chains and spiked shoulders, bejeweled robe with a crown, etc.), but his stage manner seemed more natural.
When Lambert, 37, offered rockers like “Now I’m Here” and “Seven Seas of Rhye,” it felt like an actor portraying a rock star. He doesn’t get lost in what he’s singing; he seems to be thinking about what he’s doing. However, when Lambert interpreted Queen’s ballads, pop tunes and epic Broadwayesque selections, he totally owned it.
Bathed in a rainbow of lasers, he belted “Who Wants To Live Forever” like it was the 11 o’clock number of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. He soared with a rich, robust vibrato on “The Show Must Go On” as if it were the theme song of the tour. He found an impossibly high, Mercury-rising note on “Somebody to Love,” the perfect combination of passion and panache. And he totally channeled Mercury in an apt way on “Bohemian Rhapsody” without trying to replace the legend he dubbed “irreplaceable.”
Lambert demonstrated remarkable vocal and stylistic range, screaming like Robert Plant on “Tie Your Mother Down,” exchanging vocal yelps and moans with comparable sounds from May’s guitar on “I Want It All” and emulating Elvis Presley on the rockabilly romp “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (complete with the best Elvis pompadour since Chris Isaak, with an extra touch of glitter).
Founding Queen drummer Roger Taylor, 70, had his moments to shine, fervently trading vocals with Lambert on the Queen/David Bowie hit “Under Pressure” and essaying the dense prog-rock “I’m in Love with My Car,” a tune that was a running joke in the film “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
But the night belonged to May, a soft-spoken nerd who earned a Ph.D. in his spare time. Although the 72-year-old with the long silver ringlets looks as if he might have stepped out of an AARP version of Spinal Tap, he managed to elevate every song with either brief or expansive guitar passages. At one point, surrounded by a galaxy of stars, meteors and planets on video screens, he unleashed an 11-minute instrumental that sounded like his doctoral dissertation in astrophysics delivered through his guitar.
The briskly paced 130-minute show featured brief appearances by Mercury on film, notably leading the thrilled crowd in a call-and-response of his patented “ay-oh” chant for the first encore. With a taste of Mercury, plenty of hits, a couple of deep cuts, a classy production (including royal boxes for VIP fans onstage) and “movie stars” who came alive, Queen ruled once again.
At show’s end, as a recorded version of “God Save the Queen” was broadcast, the three sidemen took a bow, then Lambert did a theatrical curtsy, and finally May and Taylor stepped forward together to a thunderous reaction that felt like the American equivalent of proclaiming “Long live Queen.”
Jon Bream has been a music critic at the Star Tribune since 1975, making him the longest tenured pop critic at a U.S. daily newspaper. He has attended more than 8,000 concerts and written four books (on Prince, Led Zeppelin, Neil Diamond and Bob Dylan). Thus far, he has ignored readers’ suggestions that he take a music-appreciation class.
Singer Adam Lambert lets guitarist Brian May be the star of the revived British rockers.
By Jon Bream Star Tribune
August 11, 2019 — 2:42pm
“God Save the Queen” is the British national anthem. If Queen, the British rock band, had an international anthem, it might be called “Thank God for the Movies.”
First, there was “Wayne’s World” in 1992, and that indelible scene of Wayne, Garth and their friends crammed into an old AMC Pacer banging their heads to a cassette of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” That was a year after Queen singer Freddie Mercury had died and six years after the band’s final tour. Welcome back to the top of the charts, with a song recorded in 1975.
Then last year came the blockbuster biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which grossed more than $1 billion worldwide and led to four Oscars, including best actor for an American who didn’t even attempt to sing like the incomparable Mercury (whose original vocals were dubbed in).
Queen is now bigger than ever — especially in the United States, which never embraced the quartet the way Europe did. Like the Beatles, Queen is having a massive afterlife. Unlike the Fab Four, though, Queen still tours as Queen, with two original members, three hired guns and 2009 “American Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert on lead vocals.
Saturday’s Queen concert at Xcel Energy Center sold out faster than you can ask “Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?” Even though this is Lambert’s third tour with the band since 2014, it felt different this time. Queen’s enviable catalog of hits has remained popular, but the biopic brought out the personalities in the band, especially lead guitarist Brian May. And he, not Lambert, was the star of Saturday’s show.
Whenever May stepped forward to take a solo, he received a tremendous ovation from the more than 16,000 fans. Lambert was careful to let May dominate the catwalk extending from the stage. In fact, there were only a few times when Lambert hit the runway without May.
May sat by himself as the end of the runway, plucking a 12-string acoustic guitar singing “Love of My Life.” A song featured in the biopic, it felt more meaningful this time than two years ago when Queen played in St. Paul because we now know the back story.
Last time, Lambert was more of a look-at-me-now ham, wearing delightfully garish outfits and camping it up like he was auditioning for a drag show without a drag costume. This time, his outfits were wonderfully sparkly (gold lame with ruffled shirt, black leather jacket with rhinestone chains and spiked shoulders, bejeweled robe with a crown, etc.), but his stage manner seemed more natural.
When Lambert, 37, offered rockers like “Now I’m Here” and “Seven Seas of Rhye,” it felt like an actor portraying a rock star. He doesn’t get lost in what he’s singing; he seems to be thinking about what he’s doing. However, when Lambert interpreted Queen’s ballads, pop tunes and epic Broadwayesque selections, he totally owned it.
Bathed in a rainbow of lasers, he belted “Who Wants To Live Forever” like it was the 11 o’clock number of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. He soared with a rich, robust vibrato on “The Show Must Go On” as if it were the theme song of the tour. He found an impossibly high, Mercury-rising note on “Somebody to Love,” the perfect combination of passion and panache. And he totally channeled Mercury in an apt way on “Bohemian Rhapsody” without trying to replace the legend he dubbed “irreplaceable.”
Lambert demonstrated remarkable vocal and stylistic range, screaming like Robert Plant on “Tie Your Mother Down,” exchanging vocal yelps and moans with comparable sounds from May’s guitar on “I Want It All” and emulating Elvis Presley on the rockabilly romp “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (complete with the best Elvis pompadour since Chris Isaak, with an extra touch of glitter).
Founding Queen drummer Roger Taylor, 70, had his moments to shine, fervently trading vocals with Lambert on the Queen/David Bowie hit “Under Pressure” and essaying the dense prog-rock “I’m in Love with My Car,” a tune that was a running joke in the film “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
But the night belonged to May, a soft-spoken nerd who earned a Ph.D. in his spare time. Although the 72-year-old with the long silver ringlets looks as if he might have stepped out of an AARP version of Spinal Tap, he managed to elevate every song with either brief or expansive guitar passages. At one point, surrounded by a galaxy of stars, meteors and planets on video screens, he unleashed an 11-minute instrumental that sounded like his doctoral dissertation in astrophysics delivered through his guitar.
The briskly paced 130-minute show featured brief appearances by Mercury on film, notably leading the thrilled crowd in a call-and-response of his patented “ay-oh” chant for the first encore. With a taste of Mercury, plenty of hits, a couple of deep cuts, a classy production (including royal boxes for VIP fans onstage) and “movie stars” who came alive, Queen ruled once again.
At show’s end, as a recorded version of “God Save the Queen” was broadcast, the three sidemen took a bow, then Lambert did a theatrical curtsy, and finally May and Taylor stepped forward together to a thunderous reaction that felt like the American equivalent of proclaiming “Long live Queen.”
Jon Bream has been a music critic at the Star Tribune since 1975, making him the longest tenured pop critic at a U.S. daily newspaper. He has attended more than 8,000 concerts and written four books (on Prince, Led Zeppelin, Neil Diamond and Bob Dylan). Thus far, he has ignored readers’ suggestions that he take a music-appreciation class.
Link to article and photo gallery: www.startribune.com/thanks-to-hit-biopic-queen-rules-in-st-paul/534062522/
QAL North American Tour 2019
12 Jul Tacoma, WA Tacoma Dome
14 Jul San Jose, CA SAP Center
16 Jul Phoenix, AZ Talking Stick Resort Arena
19 Jul Los Angeles, CA The Forum
20 Jul Los Angeles, CA The Forum
23 Jul Dallas, TX American Airlines Center
24 Jul Houston, TX Toyota Center
27 Jul Detroit, MI Little Caesars Arena
28 Jul Toronto, ON Scotiabank Arena
30 Jul Washington, DC Capital One Arena
31 Jul Pittsburgh, PA PPG Paints Arena
03 Aug Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center
04 Aug Boston, MA Xfinity Center
06 Aug New York, NY Madison Square Garden
07 Aug New York, NY Madison Square Garden
09 Aug Chicago, IL United Center
13 Aug Columbus, OH Nationwide Arena
15 Aug Nashville, TN Bridgestone Arena
17 Aug Ft. Lauderdale, FL BB&T Center
18 Aug Tampa, FL Amalie Arena
20 Aug New Orleans, LA Smoothie King Center
22 Aug Atlanta, GA State Farm Arena
23 Aug Charlotte, NC Spectrum Center
28 Sept QAL - Global Citizen Performance, Central Park, NYC
How to earn a free ticket: globalcitizenfestival.com.
Air live on MSNBC; Comcast NBCUniversal; plus, iHeartMedia will broadcast the event live across the country on its radio stations, as well as stream it on iHeartRadio.
VIP tickets are available from Ticketmaster.com (they appear to be sold out).