9.24.13 Fairy Godfathers, Berting, Berting and more Berting!

“Adam then and now.” Found on Twitter originator unknown.






A full circle moment…
and the fairy godfathers are there!

9.24.13 by Q3

The iHeartRadio Music Festival performance by Queen featuring Adam Lambert seems like a full circle moment. Things feel like they are spiraling up for Adam.

It has been a wild 4 years – but somehow everything feels like it just shifted up a gear. And it always seems like the fairy godfathers are there! [Or is Brian a Wizard with wild hair and Roger Archimedes the wise owl. See "The Once and Future King"] Queen, Brian and Roger seem to float in and out of Adam's life.

In the mid-1990’s Adam listed to Eber’s Queen records and become a fan.



September 2008 Adam auditions for Idol. His second audition song is broadcast, a bit of “Bohemian Rhaposody”.
(The audition was broadcast on January 20, 2009.)



February 26, 2009 Adam becomes an American Idol finalist. He lists his Favorite Male Pop Artists as Michael Jackson, Freddie Mercury, Lenny Kravitz, and David Bowie.

May 20, 2009 Adam and Queen perform on the Idol Finale. A grand moment for Adam. [oh, and Kris was there, too.]

September 25, 2010 Adam wears his Queen T-shirt in Singapore during the GNT! The shirt sees many other tour stops during the tour.



November 6, 2011 Adam is the surprise vocalist performing with Queen for the closing set of the EMA’s.





June-July, 2012 Queenbert performs 6 concerts. Adam’s name appears on an official Queen T-shirt!


June 30, 2012 Adam joins Queen in Kiev for the performance in front of the largest audience of his career -- so far.



2013 Queen featuring Adam Lambert close the show at iHeartRadio Music Festival.
Adam does what I believe is his best vocal performance – so far.





Berting on OMG Insider!
Broadcast on 9.23.13

Ississ ‏@ississ
@adamlambert You were just on my tv. @lyndseyparker was praising your performance with Queen on OMGinsider pic.twitter.com/OBtGITn2RJ









iHeartRadio Music Festival Photos:
The Craziest Ish That Went Down
Posted  by John Walker

5.) ADAM LAMBERT ENTERS FULL QUEEN MODE: Joined by Queen and the rest of fun., Adam's live rendition of "Fat Bottomed Girls" was seriously AH-MAY-ZING. Also, did you see the "Lay Me Down" singer's dynamic onstage chemistry with fun. frontman, Nate Ruess? Like, it just makes all of my ridiculous, outlandish fantasies so much easier to envision! Thanks, iHeartRadio Music Festival.


buzzworthy.mtv.com/2013/09/23/iheart-radio-music-festival-craziest-moments-photos/



Adam Backstage during the Queen + fun. performance

little clip of Adam Lambert backstage at the iHeart Music Festival in Vegas - Sept. 20 2013 while Nate was singing STL
adamfan4ever339 
Published on Sep 23, 2013

Hoopla Magnet @hooplamagnet
RT @wendyfromCanada: my short little clip of Adam backstage at iHeart during Somebody To Love - youtu.be/WtWlui7W13Y



Berting at Grammy.com

The GRAMMYs ‏@thegrammys
PHOTO OF THE DAY: @adamlambert rocks the #iHeartRadio Music Festival with @queenwillrock grm.my/18TfYwu pic.twitter.com/BEbb6Rq8ZG

*****

Note: I am reposting this recap because I posted it in the 9.22.13 thread very late in the day and it got missed. I am very interested in the answers to the questions at the end. Any help appreciated. Since I wrote it I have watched the videos and Adam did sing that extra line in WRTC.



iheartradio#AdamLambert strikes a pose before his performance at the #iheartradio Music Festival Photo: @pauloctavious for iHeartRadio

My Recap of the iHeartRadio Music Festival
9.22.13 by Q3

Adam Lambert's "Who Wants to Live Forever" is the best live vocal I have ever heard. There is not much else to say but of course I can’t stop “talking” about this show.

***

It was the end of a very, very long day. I barely slept the night before and got up at 4:00AM EDT to fly to Las Vegas. After hours of traveling, two flights, a 50-minute wait to check in, $20 donated to Las Vegas casinos, dinner and drinks with a few ATop friends, another long line to get into the arena, and 5 hours of opening acts…

Second biggest surprise of the night

The second biggest surprise of the night for me was how great Elton John is live. I have never seen him live before and I was blown away! I was expecting a typical “icon performs” event – I would watch with respect and remember what he used to be like, and then clap politely thinking “I’ll be old and irrelevant someday too.” But Elton brought so much talent, joy, energy and sheer showmanship to his performance (along with a killer band) that it was not an icon performing, it was an iconic performance.

****

As the time approached for the Queen + Adam Lambert, the Katy Perry iHR video promo included a great compliment of Adam.

I was so lucky. For starters I had a floor seat on the center right aisle – no complaints. But I got even luckier because right before Adam took the stage I got asked if I wanted to move up a few rows, and I said yes. I ended up in the center, a few rows in front of the catwalk. My dream location!!

Then as the time approached, this video was played on the big screen. Adam was the polite, nice Adam we all know so well.

youtu.be/6vbwu4cMVqI

It was time….a bit past midnight, Adam and Queen took the stage. It is etched in my mind, like a dream movie. You know like when you wake up dreaming and it is as if it was full 3D technicolor and you can replay the memory frame-by-frame.

The big surprise

Mario Lopez said, “Please welcome Queen featuring Adam Lambert…” The crowd roars. I can see people walking out to take their places on the stage and Adam, in black and looking very, very tall, walks to the end of the catwalk. I noticed his feet are sparkly! Disco-ball boots? WTF?

Adam sang the beginning of Bohemian Rhapsody – flawlessly. The crowd became really quiet.

The big surprise came as he turned and walked to the center of the stage took the mike and sang part of “Another One Bites the Dust with a confidence and stage command and power I have never seen before. Yes, there were hints of this earlier this year at Pittsburgh Pride and Paso Robles. But here was Queen and Adam Lambert, and everyone in the venue was looking at Adam. [Check out Adam at the end of ABTD signaling to the sound guy -- I hope someone got video of this.] 

By the third song Adam morphed into his full Elvis, doing “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, and he had the audience completely in his power. When he did the head shake after right before Brian’s guitar break, I just about fainted. And when this song ended with a full-on Lambert vocal and a shimmy-shake, I knew this was Adam’s show.

Then the moment I will never forget. Never.

Adam approached the mike stand. Queen started to play – “OMG it can’t be. They are playing “Who Wants to Live Forever”!!!” And Adam started to sing. I can still hear it…note for note.

There's no time for us,
There's no place for us,
What is this thing that builds our dreams,
yet slips away from us.…

Calmly, slowly, at the iHeartRadio Music Festival, the biggest pop music circus of the year, Adam commanded the full attention of the entire crowd with an operatic ballad! By the time he sang “What is this thing that builds our dreams yet slips away
from us.”, everyone in the entire MGM Grand arena was in the palm of his hand.

“Who wants to live forever? Who wants to live forever…”

Well, Adam we all do because then we might have a chance to hear you perform this song again. It was one of those vocal moments for the ages, and I was there. Standing there.

There was a break in the Adam show (sorry, but I was there for Adam) for a nice, crowd-pleasing performance of “Somebody to Love” with the “gentlemen of fun” and then Adam returned for “Fat Bottom Girls” with Queen and fun. It was indeed fun. Nate looked like a kid who got to meet and sing with his heroes. Adam and Nate looked like they really enjoyed singing together. It was one of the nicest moments of the whole night’s concert when Nate and Adam do a bro-hug at the end.

I have only one other comment about Nate. He must have a lot of guts because that is what it took to walk onto that stage after Adam had sung WWTLF.

Then Adam took over. And he took over. He literally prowled down the catwalk with “Dragon Attack”. They closed up the show with the three most famous Queen hits, a reprise of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “We Will Rock You”, and “We Are the Champions”.

On that night, for that performance, Adam seemed to sing the WRTC lyrics with so much conviction and understanding that it seemed to sum up the past 10 years of his life.

I've paid my dues
Time after time
I've done my sentence
But committed no crime
And bad mistakes
I've made a few
I've had my share of sand
Kicked in my face
But I've come through

\

The Vocal improvisation by Adam at the end is the only change!

On Friday night, Adam secured his spot as a great rock vocalist. Not a pop vocalist, but a rock vocalist. No doubt, no question. And he did it in front of some of the most important people in music in the world.

I am so glad that I was there to see it.

I have read a few comments about Adam not being himself and his boots causing him problems. Trust me, don’t overanalyze this performance, because it was great. Beyond great. And that was because Adam was great and the Queen catalog contains some beyond awesome songs that he was born to sing.

Who wants to live forever
Who wants to live forever

Ooh
Who dares to love forever
Oh oo woh, when love must die

But touch my tears with your lips
Touch my world with your fingertips
And we can have forever
And we can love forever
Forever is our today


A few additional stray thoughts….

I gather the live stream was missing bits here and there throughout the entire show. The QAL + bit of fun. performance was not choppy at all.

I watched the second night’s concert on the Yahoo Music livestream and noticed it was a very different experience. For example, the confetti only fell on the front of the floor section, not on the back of the floor section because this is a TV program. And the elevated DJ stage was not so exciting live because it was above most of the audience’s heads.

The crowd was not a typical concert crowd because it was part TV audience, part mega promotional event, part major sponsorship opportunity. Everything from the hotel door hangers to the ushers were sponsored.

Post script: I have not watched the videos of this concert yet. I did my best to recall what actually happened but if I have Adamnesia, I am sorry. And I am not sure exactly what the line was Adam added to We are the Champions. So if I blew it, sorry but it was something like what I wrote above.

A couple questions for our Queen experts

Has Queen ever broken up Bohemian Rhapsody like that before?

I believe Adam threw in that line about the whole human race in WRTC. Am I correct?

Update: The lyrics change in WRTC appears to have be a lyrics hearing fail on my part. It appears that Adam did sign LOSE, not LOVE.

There was a lyrics change that appears to have been on purpose...thanks, Iridium!

In WWLF Adam sang:

There is no time for us,
There is no space for us

The original lyrics are There is no place for us.

This was a purposeful change.

*****

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November 7, 2013 Adam's debut in Glee. He will be in episode 4 of Season 5.

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