OK, Houston recap—I promised myself I’d keep this short so I could focus on my real work like a good girl. Y’all know me too well to buy that, who was I kidding? This is LOOOOONG, folks. Scroll is your friend. (Also, not edited and probably full of typos because fuck that shit, says the professional editor
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I drove over from Austin with my husband (“A.”) as a belated birthday present, and I was jumpy with excitement. I haven’t refrained from vids, but I tried not to watch too many, and there were specific moments, like the opening and the grand finale, that I consciously kept my distance from so as to feel the effect more live. To be honest, it would have been nice, in the moment, to feel the first thrill of the costumes and staging surprises, but the nice thing was, I got to live those surprises vicariously through A., and I kept a close eye on his face throughout to see his reactions.
We got to our seats a little before the official 7.30 start time, but the arena was still half-empty at that point, and I knew to settle in for a long wait. If the stage was at 12 on a clock, our seats were at 5, about 2/3 of the way up the first tier. It was quite a way even to the small stage, but the view looked perfect from there (just the right angle for the couch!) and we knew the video screens would compensate nicely for the distance.
The crowd, as everyone has said, was very mixed. Our row was mostly young folks (in their low 20s, and A. and I are in our mid-30s); in front of us, a couple in their 50s; behind us, some die-hard Queen and rock dudes in their 40s, who spent the hour before curtain happily comparing experiences at endless different rock concerts they’d been to. More on them later.
It felt like the arena would never fill up, but then the vast, bowl-like space went suddenly black and the first flash from the rigging lit up an uninterrupted sweep of thousands and thousands of faces, all turned towards stage. It must have looked fucking incredible to Adam when the curtain flew away from in front of him and revealed that curving sea of humanity, focused on a single point: him. I wonder if it ever feels normal.
An aside about arena concerts: I haven’t been to many—mostly I go to smaller shows. I saw U2 at Dallas Cowboys stadium once, but I was in the top row of the stadium, as far away from the stage as I could possibly be while still being behind it, so I was not so much watching a concert as watching other people watch a concert. I don’t have much to compare this concert to. Arenas are smaller, of course, and can give some meaningful sense of intimacy (I felt it for sure during “Love of My Life”) but its never going to be the same as watching a show in a club or a theater. But the trade off is that you get these amazing visuals—seas of faces, arms clapping in unison, lights, lasers, magic. A scale and scope that makes the cheers and clapping of the crowd seem truly thunderous: a weather event. Seems a fair trade to me. [And, looking at that rather odd review above me, I’m not sure how reasonable it is to expect people sitting 200 yards from a stage and far above it to stand for two hours of a show during which they could comfortably sit. The peeps on the floor and much of the close-in side seating in the Toyota Center were standing for the whole concert. Except for a few moments, my section was seated. I love standing at concerts but I couldn’t blame them, and respected them by sitting, too. It certainly wasn’t a lack of enthusiasm. We’re talking about people who cheered madly for an hour in a fully lit arena long before any artist was in sight, simply because of a slight change in the background music or because some magic tube somewhere released a little test-puff of fog. This crowd was PUMPED, and stayed pumped].
So, the curtain lifts. It’s funny, and pretty ridiculous, how nervous I get at moments like this. Not once has Adam given me any reason to doubt his confidence, competence, utter, polished professionalism. He’s always up for the job. But there you sit, surrounded by thousands, and you know “your guy” is about to be judged, in some way, by each one of them, and yeah, I got nervous, and yeah, I knew there was no need, and the lovely thing with Adam is, 1 minute in, and you’re shaking your head at yourself because obviously, OBVIOUSLY, yeah, he’s got this. I loved the opening, I loved that moment Aleks talked about recently where the music goes quiet and Adam does his around, Around, AROUND, AROOUUUUNNNDD!!!! thing, I loved the sexy bombast of Stone Cold Crazy. I sneak a glimpse at A. He turns to me, grins, and mouths “I love his PANTS.” (He’s a keeper.) Adam does that “punch punch punch punch PELVIC THRUST” thing (tm LindaG23) and we again share a happy glance. It’s too loud to hear anything, so just to be sure we’re glancing about the same thing I mimic Adam (grotesquely): punch punch punch punch thrust and A.’s grin grows wider. I can’t tell if its amusement or attraction curling his lips as he mouths “do it again.” We settle for a high-five (the first of about four during the course of the concert).
I won’t do the play-by-play for every song. First of all, I can’t remember much through the haze of excitement, second of all, ugh, this is TOO LONG already (sorry). The Killer Queen (grin, high-five from A.), Somebody To Love, I Want It All series was the highlight of the night for me. After Somebody To Love, Adam earned his first arena-wide standing O. It was really, truly fantastic. After the song, I heard some rather high-pitched whoops coming from the direction of the Queen dudes behind me, and they led the section in jumping to their feet. The brief “YES” call-and-response thing he did was really just the audience confirming the bloody obvious: we’d found him many many people to love.
The acoustic interlude was wonderful. Brian May was moving and moved, Love of My Life sing-along-was touching as hell, and the NASA caps were adorable. Brian, I have to say, got easily the biggest applause of the night when he walked onto that little stage alone. Standing O number 2. Roger sounded totally fantastic singing. Terrific voice. Really great.
Still, the energy faded, or perhaps faded into something else, by the end of the mini-set, and Adam’s reemergence on the catwalk, even in the cover of shadows, was welcomed by big cheers. Under Pressure was another highlight for me, because of Adam, and because of Roger, too. They sounded perfect together, and when Roger pulled Adam in for a hug from their handshake, you sensed it was without thought, a natural, exuberant, warm physical instinct.
The ballads were truly stunning, as was the disco ball, but, at least in our location, there was a vibrant buzz to the high and loud frequencies (especially during Love Kills) that I could have done without. Adam’s voice filled, and sometimes shook the arena. It was some strange and powerful combination of beautiful and formidable. The very best ballad, for me, was The Show Must Go On, perhaps because that particular combination—beautiful and formidable—suits that song so very well, and Adam really dug into it.
Brian’s solo was also a highlight, even though I barely know enough to appreciate it. That was the part of the show, most of all, where you felt transported back to the ‘70s, and an age where music had the time and space to be weird and odd and fascinating, where rock was this great combination of accessible entertaining kitsch and esoteric high-art, and it didn’t need to explain or justify itself. Brian was a wonder.
I’ll wind this up in a minute, promise, but I want to say one thing that was maybe my biggest visual take-away from the show. Not the costumes, which were completely fabulous. Not the lights and lasers, which were fab too. Not the magic and glitter of the disco ball. Not the relaxed and natural way in which Adam struck perfect and ridiculous poses, like he was born under a hovering flashbulb and felt most at home there. Not “the spin” in Somebody to Love, although that’s always my favorite. No, the repeated and enduring visual of this concert for me was Adam’s smile. It was omnipresent. You’ll see it in the photos in this thread, in almost every one. It reigned over the arena from the heart of that giant Q. In every down moment, and even for most of the time when he’s actually singing (how does he do that) Adam has this wide, natural, happy, All-American smile plastered on his face. His old standby, “Are you having fun?’ is just his reflexive urge to see if others are feeling what he’s feeling. I’s like my glancing at my husband’s face every other second, to see how he’s feeling.. Adam just wants us all to share that joy that pouring out of him. And onto him. IT’s like that champagne fountain he does, it gets us wet, but it gets him wet, too. Every note he sings shoots up in to the air above his head and showers down on him as gold. And he loves it.
OK, finally, FINALE. I hadn’t really watched these vids in advance, in part not to spoil the finale, but in part because, I confess, I thought I was bored of these songs. I was wrong. They took their time coming back out, and A. leaned to me to whisper first “time for another costume change ☺” and then “they really make us want it, don’t they. The ending is perfect. The whole crowd sang along with the guy in the crown, and he grew, on that little stage in the distance, to match the size of his image in that big Q. By the time he and the fellas were bowing to God Save The Queen, I felt like they were standing right in front of me.
After Adam and the boys left the stage for their toweling, or whatever the hell its called, after A. had turned to me for one last high-five, and the lights came back up in the arena, it was a very happy crowd that filed out of the Toyota Center that night. Waiting for my turn to leave our row, I heard the Queen Lads above me talking it all over. Those were some seriously big shoes to fill, one said to the others, and he definitely filled them.
[ps--if anyone finds a really good vid (like, good-enough for non-stans to sit through) of Killer Queen and Somebody to Love in Houston, could they pm it to me? I want to brag to my friends and loved ones
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