6.26.14 Q+AL CONCERT THREAD -- Calgary, AB Canada

Jun 27, 2014 17:45:00 GMT -5 houselady said:

Precious Stupendous @gugugagah129
OMG LMAO!!!! MOST PRECIOUS ADAM EVERRRR!!!!!! ILHSFM!!!!! RT @jadelle1:
Amazing! Adam makes the audience to sing


Queen Adam Lambert
Kev Pettigrew

(Had to post quoting this -- see comments below on how great it was to see Adam loosening up and going off script more in Calgary!)

Well ... that was amazing!

I'm another Albertan who indulged in seeing both QAL concerts in this province -- I mean, I expected to have to fly to Montreal or Vancouver to see this show if it came to Canada at all, so seeing two in my own province with only a three-hour drive involved -- I just couldn't believe my luck.

I noticed wingsofbutterflies mentioned that one concert-going difference in Canada is that we tend to be careful not to obstruct the view of someone behind us, but it's not at all because we don't get excited or want to dance. In Edmonton, my daughter and I were in row 3 of a 100-level section that was as close to the right side of the stage as you could get without an obstructed view. It was great, because there was a break in the rows behind us and although people up there mostly sat, our standing and dancing didn’t get in their way, and everybody in the rows below us were on their feet, as was the entire floor. It was fun to be part of all of that movement and responsiveness, and to be that close to the band, too.

In Calgary, we were to the left of the stage a little beyond the tip of the thrust and about five rows higher. It was great because it gave us a much more expansive view of the stage and the lights, video, etc. BUT, nobody was on their feet in our section. I was okay to sit and chair-dance, but my poor 13-year-old and her friend were practically exploding corpuscle by corpuscle not being able to jump up and express that energy in movement, so I finally asked the three people diagonally behind us if they’d mind if the girls stood to dance sometimes and they were incredibly gracious about it – yay!! Canadian niceness dilemma, solved. But I did miss being part of the crowd that was whole-heartedly and whole-bodiedly (lol) responding to the band.

So much goes into how we experience a concert. In Edmonton, we were in the venue and part of a really buoyant crowd for 45 minutes before the show with almost no waiting getting in. In Calgary, something weird happened to their admissions process and there was a line to get in that started as far back as the C-Train station, so the show was at least 45 minutes late because of crowd management this time more than due to sound check issues as it had been in Edmonton, and I think that contributed to a more subdued and slightly cranky start to the show on the part of the audience. It didn’t last. The Calgary crowd was slower to respond to “Now I’m Here,” like they wanted to be shown (I’m from Calgary/Missouri, show me”) where the Edmonton crowd gave QAL their hearts from the very first notes. It also seemed to me that “Now I’m Here” began less strongly in Calgary than in Edmonton, but that’s likely because I was wearing my etymotic earplugs this time, and while you can hear everything quite well, it gives you a sort of reduced sense of immediacy, makes you feel a bit cocooned from the experience. However, I was determined to hear Adam with no chipmunk alterations this time!

You’ve heard about the major differences in this concert – no changes to setlist (except within solos), but a sea change in looseness, especially on Adam’s part … he went right off script in a very good way, because while Queen’s brand of rock does include theatricality, it’s not a “say your lines the same way and hit the same marks every night” kind of theatricality, and I think one of the things Queen fans (of which I am one) miss is an aspect of Freddie’s power that comes from a sense of dangerousness. Adam has power, no question – his voice fills the stadium and makes it vibrate – but he feels safe. It’s the trained voice, yes, but it’s also his respectfulness, the way he catches himself so quickly after an edgy moment and gives you that boy-next-door-playing-dress-up smile. I love that about him, that we get to see those facets on stage as well as off (Freddie talked about how his “hard, arrogant” stage persona was massively different from his off-stage softer, shyer side), but I think that’s part of what rock fans miss.

However, by “Fat-Bottomed Girls” I don’t think anybody was missing anything, the crowd had been shown enough and they were loving it and responding massively. A roar of appreciation would go through the crowd with the recognition of the first few notes of each song – really, it’s incredible that a band can play more than two hours of nonstop hits, isn’t it? They LOVED Brian (and also Roger) in their white cowboy hats, they loved the ’39 singalong.

What I hadn’t realized about the way they staged “Love of my Life” in Edmonton was how they staged Freddie “entering” the song in the big Q frame walking in from the left in a full body shot, looking like he might just walk right through that frame and onto the catwalk. That was a lump-in-the-throat-inducing moment and I wondered if the crowd’s longing for something like that to happen would affect the rest of the show – it’s a thin line between acknowledging and honouring a departed legend and making people so wistful for him that they can’t enjoy the fabulous present moment. The crowd responded to the video Freddie walk-on with a gasp, but they moved right on – that Herald reviewer didn’t. They roared with approval when Brian called Adam “the best rock singer in the world today” and they loved it when he came out in that crown (which, I’ll admit, made my heart drop into my stomach the first time I saw it on him in the pix and video from Chicago – but in context, live, it just works – I talked to two Queen fans post-show in our hotel elevator and asked how they felt about it and they just smiled and said it was fine, that it was a tribute to Freddie, and that it would have made him smile.

And you know, I think that’s true – in fact, it occurred to me today, if Freddie were the newcomer and Adam was the departed legend, Freddie would have worn that coronet, too, and made serious hay with it, too. And he wouldn’t have given too hoots what anybody thought about it, either.

You know, I know we’re all tired of the FLD (TM bridgeymah) , but as Q3 pointed out above, it comes with the territory Adam has chosen and I think the tone is changing. Increasingly, instead of or as well as the FLD, what I’m hearing and reading is, “Freddie would be proud/would be smiling” and the even better “they’re doing Freddie proud”.

Final note to concertgoers who are prone to sensory overload – Brian wasn’t kidding when he said this show would leave audiences “blind, deaf and gasping on the floor”. I highly recommend the etymotics for the first part of the show until you can’t stand not being fully part of it any more, and I also recommend what Ford Prefect got Arthur Dent to do before hitch-hiking their way onto a Vogon spaceship in “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” – have a stiff drink, or several – you’re going to need the fluids and muscle relaxant!

Oops, no, one MORE final note: popalock, was that YOU flashing Adam your lovely bosom on the stage?

 

ACK! ETA:  just re-read and saw myself saying something about Queen fans (of which I am none)  -- that should be "of which I am ONE"!!!