1.20.15 Q+AL Leeds

I love hearing how he is winning Queen fans over, thank you adoreadam. Enjoy your next three shows. 

Listening now...this is incredible! So clear, I can hear Brian changing the strings a bit before a couple of songs, Adam's every note, every nuance, crystal clear! Stunning quality!!! Thank you so much!

Well, there's always an excuse when things are not done properly. {sarcasm}

LIVE Review: QAL - LEEDS 1/20/2015


After singing the nation in to the New Year, Queen & Adam Lambert embarked on the European leg of their worldwide tour, stopping at the Leeds First Direct Arena on January 20th.

On arrival, the main stage was covered with a purple lit curtain decorated with the original Queen logo, attached to a walk way which turned in to a second stage in the crowd. At 8:15pm, the sounds of different chords from ‘One Vision’ began to play before the lights went off at 8:30pm, and ‘One Vision’ started with the sound of Brian May’s guitar that everyone had been waiting for accompanied by his silhouette on the curtain, before the curtain dropped, and the show began.

Glam-rock singer Adam Lambert, who was runner up in ‘American Idol’ was wearing all leather and black nail varnish – the perfect homage to Freddie Mercury. The second song was ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ track ‘Stone Cold Crazy’, which featured May’s flawless guitar playing on the ‘Q’ shaped screen behind Roger Taylor’s drum kit, as he’d attached a GoPro to the end of his guitar. The show went on to feature an endless amount of Queen hits, all of which could’ve been an encore, and all of which had the crowd singing at the top of their voices, including ‘I Want To Break Free’, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, and ‘Radio Ga Ga’.

When Lambert was announced as lead singer to accompany May and Taylor on tour (bassist John Deacon retired in 1997 and as expected, isn’t present on tour), there was a lot of speculation, as nobody wants to see Freddie replaced, or a Freddie impersonator, but Lambert is far from it. He doesn’t try and be Freddie, he’s similar in many ways, including his flamboyant outfits and his vocal capacity, but he makes each Queen song his own, as he struts across the stage showcasing his incredible voice. ‘Killer Queen’ for example was spectacular, featuring Lambert on the second stage lay on a couch. May approached the couch during his guitar solo and Lambert mimed “oh my god it’s Brian”, he’s a remarkable showman! He also paid tribute and raised a bottle of gold champagne to Freddie; “without him, I wouldn’t have a clue what I was doing up here tonight”. ‘Somebody To Love’ was also a highlight for Lambert, as he reached high notes that I didn’t think were possible!

Lambert wasn’t the only one to pay tribute to Freddie, as the entire night featured videos and pictures of Freddie on the screen in an extremely tasteful manner, always receiving continuous cheers from the crowd. May took to the second stage where he was on a stool and joked how he used to stand on stage next to another guy, that “was alright”, before talking about losing his best friend, and how playing his songs make him happy, he introduced the next song as “a Freddie song”, before starting to play his acoustic guitar and singing ‘Love of my Life’ to a tearful audience who both sang along and were silent at the same time. It was a beautiful rendition, which featured a duet with Freddie on screen. May then asked the audience if it was ok if he immortalized the moment, as he introduced them to his selfie stick/GoPro, which he took a video of the crowd with – if anybody else did this I’d have been outraged, but the concept of Brian May using a selfie stick seemed like the best thing in the world! May was then joined on the second stage by the rest of the band to sing ‘Night at the Opera’ track ‘’39’.

It was then Taylor’s turn to pay tribute to Freddie, as he sang a raspy version of ‘These Are The Days of Our Lives’ accompanied by videos of Freddie and the band, including Deacon. The band left the stage leaving the current touring bassist Neil Fairclough playing a brilliant bass solo which included bass lines from ‘Body Language’, featuring Taylor entering the stage tapping his sticks together towards the end, before engaging in a drum battle with his son Rufus Tiger Taylor, who played percussion for the band, often taking over from his Dad on the drums. There was no doubt that it was a father and son battle as Rufus is an extremely talented drummer, with his Dad commenting that he’d “have to do something about that boy” during the insane drum off.

The entire band joined together once again on the stage as Lambert and Taylor sang ‘Under Pressure’ together, followed by Lambert blowing everybody away with ‘Save Me’ and the beautiful ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’, before May was left alone for his 12 minute long alluring solo which included the guitar from his solo track ‘Last Horizon’, and a backdrop of stars, which may have seemed strange to anybody that doesn’t know May’s astrological background! Taylor and May’s solos conveyed exactly how they became to be the rock gods that they are today.

The last track before the encore was ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, which was ironically Adam Lambert’s first audition song on ‘American Idol’. An absolute spectacular rendition that was an imitation of the way the original line up performed the track, with the video in the middle as it’d be almost impossible to perform any other way. Of course at the end of the video May stormed the stage nailing another flawless guitar solo, draped in a gold jacket with a cape, long curly hair flowing behind him! I can’t be alone when I say that I could watch him play guitar all day.

The band returned for the encore with Lambert dressed in a leopard print suit, as he lead the band in to ‘We Will Rock You’, as well as the crowd in to providing their own percussion in the form of clapping, before the final song, ‘We Are The Champions’. Before the band left the stage, they had the most modest goodbye I’ve ever seen, where Lambert was pointing for the crowd to cheer for May and Taylor, they were pointing for the cheers to be directed at Lambert, the crowd was cheering for them all, and eventually Taylor encouraged May to join him front of stage as they both bowed. One of my favourite things of the night was how they all patted each other on the backs, shook hands, and said “well done” to each other at the end of tracks, it was so lovely to see. Lambert also showed his appreciation to and of May and Taylor, as he regularly watched them play in awe. If that isn’t nice enough that they all did that, May also stated how nice it was to play in such a warm atmosphere, as well as how he wasn’t sure what kind of noises they were making, but the noise from the crowd was unbelieveable. What a perfect band. What a perfect night.

If you can catch the band at any shows, then I’d highly recommend you do so!