1.19.15 Adam News and Info, London Reviews

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REVIEW: Queen And Adam Lambert, London's O2 Arena


www.entertainmentwise.com/news/164402/queen-and-adam-lambert-perform-at-londons-o2-arena#.VLu31eun4us.twitter

BY BECCA LONGMIRE ON JANUARY 18, 2015

★★★★★

Replacing a lead singer in a band like Queen is difficult and incredibly risky, so when we went to London's O2 arena last night to see how Adam Lambert would do fronting the legendary group, we weren't quite sure what to expect.

However, after watching two hours of solid hits, costume changes and amazing vocals, we can safely say that Lambert was the perfect choice to take on such a role. Queen's Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor may be a lot older than the 32-year-old, who shot to fame on US talent show American Idol, but the group managed to gel perfectly and not only did the singer manage to nail the vocals, he also rocked all the iconic Queen outfits, as well as engaging with the crowd in between songs - a true entertainer.



Despite his job obviously being to fill Mercury's (very high heeled) shoes, it was quite obvious from the very beginning that Lambert had no interest in even pretending that he could actually be Freddie, who tragically passed away in 1991. Not only did May pay tribute to the frontman in a very emotional performance of Love Of My Life, in which Mercury appeared on the screen behind them, but Lambert also left a lot of the classic lyrics to him as well - so they really did get to share that special moment with the late singer.

The packed out audience even got to see Lambert and Mercury perform as close to a duet as they'll ever get, during the much-loved Bohemian Rhapsody. “There will only be one Freddie Mercury, ever,” Lambert told the crowd, and you could tell that he truly meant it, despite his latest job catapulting his career to a whole new level.

Highlights of the evening include May's solo performance and very touching speech, where he not only referenced Mercury, but also took the opportunity to use his selfie stick and take one big group shot of the audience, who were banned from taking their own sticks into the show...for obvious reasons. Lambert's stunning vocals in Who Wants To Live Forever is also up there, with the eccentric singer just standing there in a ghost- like atmosphere, as well as the golden oldies like Radio Gaga, that obviously got the audience clapping away, as did the legendary We Will Rock You.

In fact, even after a solid two hour performance, it still felt like with Queen's epic back catalogue, they had a lot more to give. One thing's for sure, Lambert won't be returning to the singing in clubs days anytime soon - an amazing show and we're pretty certain this is just the start of an even bigger future for the frontman, who despite being incredibly OTT, did Freddie Mercury proud last night




Queen + Adam Lambert, O2 Arena, review: 'spectacular'

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/live-music-reviews/11353627/Queen-Adam-Lambert-review.html#disqus_thread


No-one can better fill Freddie Mercury's shoes better than Lambert says Catherine Gee


Adam Lambert and Brian May at the O2 Arena on January 17, 2015 Photo: Getty

By Catherine Gee

July this year will mark 30 years since Live Aid’s enormous simultaneous concerts at Wembley Stadium and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. That day, Freddie Mercury, dressed all in white, helped Queen deliver a performance so electrifying that their 20-minute set has since been declared the world’s greatest ever live show.

At the time, Adam Lambert was just three years old. But it’s his youth and rapturous energy that has given Queen the glittering boost that they’ve been so desperately lacking since Mercury’s death. Without attempting to impersonate Mercury - if anything, he looks more like George Michael - Lambert has brought dazzling showmanship and style back to the band. He's also everything that Queen’s last long-term singer, the blokey, bluesy, ex-Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers, is not.

It’s 24 years since Mercury died. Queen have actually been together longer without him than they were with him. But there is no detaching Mercury from Queen and throughout this packed show at London’s O2 Arena, their painfully missed singer was a constant presence.

On stage, Lambert was the first to pay tribute, saying warmly, “I love him just as much as you.”

Though he may be less well known over here, in America, Lambert is a familiar face, having been runner up in 2009’s American Idol. But when he walked into the audition room and performed Bohemian Rhapsody for Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul, he was already a trained and seasoned performer who’d cut his teeth on Broadway.

On Saturday, with 31 dates of a world tour with Queen already under his belt, Lambert looked entirely at home. As for the two remaining original members, the now-grey-haired 60-somethings Brian May (guitar) and Roger Taylor (drums) - they looked like they were having the most fun they’d had in years.

Both men are clearly still at the top of their game and midway through the 23-song set they indulged in what so few music veterans can resist: prolonged instrumentals. May, bassist Neil Fairclough and Taylor all had a go - with Taylor accompanied by his son Rufus, who regularly plays with the band. Unfortunately, this lengthy indulgence did result in one of the show’s few flatter moments - and one where many audience members grabbed the chance to run to the lavatory.

The stage was suitably dressed for a spectacular show, flanked by giant video screens with another set inside an enormous Q. At one poignant moment, May sat alone under a spotlight at the end of a long walkway and paid his own tribute to Mercury. Love of My Life, the song he and Mercury used to perform as a pair, became his solo number - until suddenly footage of Mercury singing it live appeared on the giant screen behind. For a moment, it felt like he was there.

It was Lambert’s own virtual duet with Mercury on Bohemian Rhapsody that truly showed how well his vocals compete with the great man himself. The 32-year-old’s talent is truly staggering, with a range, clarity and tone that make him one of the world’s great vocalists.

His captivating performance saw four costume changes - opening the show clad in black studded leather and closing in a leopard print suit and bejewelled crown. May even got in on the fun during the encore, emerging in a gold lamé poncho.

For a brilliantly camped-up version of Killer Queen, a pouting Lambert draped himself on a purple chaise longue. Spitting a long jet of champagne out onto the crowd, he seductively asked an audience member, “Did I get you wet, lady?”

As a performance, it was empowering. During those less enlightened times, Mercury himself could never risk being so verbally sexual in public. He could never risk being completely honest about his sexuality either - as the openly gay Lambert can now.

No one will ever be able to replace Freddie Mercury, this much we know. But there’s currently no one else who could better fill his shoes and put on such a spectacular show than Adam Lambert. And it only took May and Taylor two decades to find him.







classicrock.teamrock.com/reviews/2015-01-18/queen-adam-lambert-live-in-london

Brian May, Roger Taylor and Adam Lambert pay tribute to Queen and Freddie Mercury

Venue:O2, London

Date of Gig:Saturday 17th Jan '15

In a world where it's unremarkable for successful rock bands to have fifty-year careers, it's easy to forget that Queen lost Freddie Mercury less than halfway through theirs. And yet, like grieving offspring who refuse to countenance the idea of a widowed parent eventually getting re-married, a number of fans cling to the belief that the band should have called a halt to their lives back in 1991, are determined to file anything released since Mercury's death in the "cash cow" drawer, and have reacted to Adam Lambert's involvement with the kind of fury usually reserved for people who mistreat donkeys in small Spanish communities.

He's not Freddie, and there's no Queen without Freddie, they say. It's impossible to like Lambert if you saw the band first time round, they say. He's an American Idol runner-up. A pop singer. He's "too gay", suggested a reader on this website recently (you wonder if Paul Rodgers could similarly be considered "too heterosexual"). None of these things preclude Lambert from performing with Queen — or Queens Of The Stone Age, or Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, for that matter — but no-one's suggesting he gets a free ride either. Only one thing matters: does it actually work?

Initially, it's a bit of a shock. As the riff to opener One Vision winds up, Brian May's unmistakable silhouette is projected onto an enormous curtain shielding the stage, and Lambert's voice sounds shrill and out-of-control, frantically scrabbling around like a climber searching for footholds on a slippery rockface. It's a song so tied to Mercury's vocal that Lambert's more boyish alternative naturally jarrs, but it's a trick of the mind, and it doesn't last. Once the ears have adjusted to the difference, it's remarkable how well it all works, and the country hoedown of fourth song Fat Bottomed Girls' sounds exultant, like an end-of-set climax, as Lambert squeals, "All of my fat-ass bitches out there... get on your bikes and ride!" He's a captivating frontman, all puckered lips and fluttering eyes, from the generation of musicians who've gown up with their faces projected onto large screens, fully versed in the effect a deftly arched eyebrow can have on an arena.

He pitches the performance just right. After spitting an arc of champagne over the audience after Killer Queen ("Did I get you wet, lady? That's what rock'n'roll is all about!") he offers a quiet tribute to the band: "My goal is to celebrate the amazing music of Queen, and to bring you back to the place that made you love them in the first place." At no point does Lambert's performance ever feel like an impersonation of Mercury, although there are obvious high camp parallels, even if Mercury's peacockery was less overt, more of the nudge-wink variety.

After a swelling Somebody To Love Lambert departs, leaving May alone on a stool at the end of the runway. He plays the unexpected (Flanagan & Allen's Maybe It's Because I'm A Londoner), the expected (a quite lovely version of Love Of My Life, with the audience doing the bulk of the work and Mercury appearing onscreen to finish the song), experiments with a selfie-stick, and delivers a brief lecture on Einstein's twin paradox theory.

Other highlights? An acoustic, campfire romp through '39; Roger Taylor casually strolling the stage singing These Are the Days of Our Lives as cheers greet the appearance of John Deacon on the big screen; a giant disco ball dropping in from the ceiling during Who Wants to Live Forever, beams of light turning the arena into Studio 54; Taylor's son Rufus talking over on drums for a barrelling Tie Your Mother Down; a genuinely dramatic version of Save Me courtesy of Lambert; and the appearance of I Want It All, a song the original band never played live.

The set ends with Bohemian Rhapsody. Entire audience rows sway together, arms round each other's shoulders. Taylor's riser rises, May solos in Zandra Rhodes gold, and the final coda is delivered with Lambert standing respectfully beneath the big screen, trading lines with two Freddies, beamed in from Milton Keynes in 1982 and Budapest four years later.

This writer did see Queen first time round, at their final Knebworth show. And while tonight's performance may have lacked the sheer force of personality provided by Freddie, and his ability to physically dominate an audience, it's somehow a much warmer celebration of the band's music. It's a tribute, yes, but it's heartfelt and powerful and ridiculous in all the right ways. It's Queen.




Review From Glasgow


DAILY RECORD

Queen find fitting new lead in former American Idol star Adam Lambert as they rock The Hydro

By Jules Boyle
January 18,2015

LAMBERT delivered a spectacular performance that showed he was his own man and not a Freddie Mercury tribute act.





There’s no Queen without Freddie Mercury.

So it’s easy to knock this new band as a tribute act, especially as they’ve drafted in a singer who made his name on American Idol. But this was really special, a proper spectacular in every sense of the word and it was all down to one man. Adam Lambert.

If he’d just tried to do a Freddie impersonation it would have been awful but the American singer was firmly his own man, with a charisma and star quality that couldn’t be denied. Funny, camp and in your face, Lambert stole the show, helped in no small part by that incredible voice. Make no mistake, technically speaking alone, this guy leaves pretty much everyone in the dust. Seriously. He’s that good.

Of course, it helped massively that he was singing from one of the best back catalogues in music, firing off one huge hit after another.

It kicked off in suitably epic style with Brian May appearing in silhouette on the screen covering the stage, cranking out the first monster riff of the night, the mighty One Vision.

Queen @ The Hydro in Glasgow: Piper tells of delight at getting chance to perform in front of 13,000 crowd

The crowd went ballistic but they didn’t waste any time soaking in the applause, barreling straight into Stone Cold Crazy, a rare cut from way back in 1974, its full-tilt boogie echoing Led Zeppelin at their most swinging. Despite being surrounded by better-known anthems it was one of the real highlights of the night.

It kicked off a short run of early tracks, like Fat Bottomed Girls, In The Lap Of The Gods and Seven Seas Of Rye, each delivered with the swagger of a band that knew they were smashing it, with Lambert making each song his own.

He draped himself over a decadent chaise longue for Killer Queen, before addressing the elephant in the room as way of introduction to I Want To Break Free, telling us: “I wouldn’t have a ****ing clue what I was doing if it wasn’t for the singular, unique and great Freddie Mercury.”

He wasn’t trying to replace the great man but he was doing an incredible job of paying tribute to him. So much so that when he left the stage for a few songs in the middle of the set, you missed him instantly.

Brian May took over on vocals for a solo acoustic version of Love Of My Life, its poignancy reinforced with video footage of Freddie finishing off the track’s last lines. Roger Taylor took his turn in the spotlight, with an emotional These Are The Days Of Our Lives, backed by vintage footage of the band.

Sure, it was good, but it was when Lambert came back on for Under Pressure that the gig really ignited again. He really shone on Who Wants To Live Forever. A big song, but it said a lot about just how jaw-dropping that voice was that it suited him perfectly.

From then on in, Queen were relentless in their mission to entertain to the end. I Want It All and Radio Gaga were as epic as ever, while Tie Your Mother Down was an irresistible blast of down and dirty rock ‘n’roll.

Bohemian Rhapsody was reworked as a duet, with Lambert alternating vocals with live footage of Freddie but in all honesty, it would have worked better if they let him just sing it himself.

They finished up on a killer double whammy of We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions, with the crowd singing every word while doing the iconic handclaps.

It could have been a disaster but in Adam Lambert, Queen have found the only singer who could step into those very big shoes. As a tribute to Freddie Mercury and as a gig in its own right, this was a glorious success. Amazing.

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/queen-find-fitting-new-lead-4994518#ICID






Adamtopia Calendar

QUEEN + ADAM LAMBERT – 2015 UK and EUROPE TOUR
Note: Sold out status based on availability of tickets on 1.5.15 at 12:00 AM. Lack of available tickets may be due to factors other than a “sold out” concert and these concerts may not be technically sold out. A few more tickets are likely to be available before the concert dates when the unused VIP, artists, press and venue holds are released.

CONCERTS START AT 20:00 LOCAL TIME

Tue 13 January NEWCASTLE Arena SOLD OUT Attendance: 9,500
Wed 14 January GLASGOW Hydro SOLD OUT Attendence:
Sat 17 January LONDON O2 Arena SOLD OUT
Sun 18 January LONDON O2 Arena SOLD OUT
Tue 20 January LEEDS Arena - a few VIP tickets left.
Wed 21 January MANCHESTER Arena SOLD OUT
Friday 23 January BIRMINGHAM NIA SOLD OUT
Sat 24 January NOTTINGHAM Arena SOLD OUT
Mon 26 January PARIS Zenith SOLD OUT
Thu 29 January COLOGNE Lanxess Arena
Fri 30 January AMSTERDAM, Ziggo Dome SOLD OUT
Sun 1 February VIENNA Stadhalle
Mon 2 February MUNICH Olympiahalle
Wed 4 February BERLIN O2
Thu 5 February HAMBURG O2
Sat 7 February FRANKFURT Festhalle
Sun 8 February BRUSSELS Palais 12 SOLD OUT
Tue 10 February MILAN Forum SOLD OUT
Fri 13 February STUTTGART Schleyerhalle
Sun 15 February HERNING Jyske Bank Boxen SOLD OUT
Tue 17 February PRAGUE O2 - very limited
Thu 19 February ZURICH Hallenstadion
Sat 21 February KRAKOW Kraków Arena
Tues 24 February LONDON Wembley SSE Arena SOLD OUT
Thurs 26 February LIVERPOOL Echo Arena – limited to standing GA tickets
Fri 27 February SHEFFIELD Motorpoint Arena – limited to standing GA tickets

Early 2015: Adam's Third Studio Album may be released.

*****

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*****

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