www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2019/08/16/queen-adam-lambert-concert-review-2019-setlist-nashville-bridgestone-arena-tour/1995798001/Queen (and Adam Lambert) are the champions at Nashville concert
Dave Paulson, Nashville Tennessean
It’s been 49 years since Queen first took the stage. More than 20 since their last hit song.
Still, when the British rock greats returned to Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena Thursday night, they were greeted like a white-hot act who’d just topped the charts.
And, well, they had.
The 2018 film “Bohemian Rhapsody” – which traced the band’s rise and the life of their late, legendary frontman Freddie Mercury – trounced all records to become the highest-grossing music biopic of all time.
it also made this sold-out show an even hotter ticket than the band’s last stop at Bridgestone in 2017.
But while “Bohemian Rhapsody” tried to engineer a spitting image of Mercury in Rami Malek (even recruiting Nashville-based soundalike Marc Martel for vocal work), the modern Queen has gone in a different direction in tapping Adam Lambert, and it’s the right one.
The 37-year-old “American Idol” alum has fronted the band since 2011, and he makes no attempt to sound like Mercury. Instead, he’s an inspired, kindred spirit: an openly gay performer with plenty of vocal power and a fondness for theatrical flair.
"I'm gonna address the big pink elephant in the room, OK?" Lambert told the crowd.
"I'm not Freddie. I know. And there is no replacing the rock god Freddie Mercury. Every time I take the stage, all I'm hoping for is that I'm doing his memory proud, and that I'm celebrating his amazing legacy, and this amazing band with all of you guys."
He also expressed his honor over sharing the stage with two of Queen’s founding members — or "rock and roll legends,” in his words — guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor.
One thing “Bohemian Rhapsody” took pains to establish: Queen, ironically, was a democracy, with all four members contributing songs and designing their sound.
That's made clear during a 21st century Queen concert, too, whether its Taylor belting and pounding his way through “I’m In Love With My Car,” or May taking center stage for another instantly recognizable solo. In concert, you quickly realize that no Queen classic is complete without one of his searing, hyper-melodic bursts.
And May, it turns out, is an effective vocalist too — though he left much of the singing during an acoustic “Love of My Life” to the crowd. Then, archive footage of Mercury appeared alongside him on the screens, in a moving bit of video trickery.
Even with the laser lights, a spinning motorcycle Lambert strode atop during "Bicycle Race" and a trippy guitar solo break that saw May riding a projected asteroid while planets hovered around him, the show's best special effects were any hint of Mercury.
Nothing made the room's hair stand on end quite like the beginning of "Bohemian Rhapsody," which had Mercury's recorded vocals from 1975 bouncing off the walls. He also reappeared — seemingly on the Bridgestone stage via video projection — to lead the crowd in his iconic brand of call-and-response.
Of course, not all of Queen's catalog is so iconic. In terms of audience recognition, there’s a pretty wide gulf between "Another One Bites The Dust" and, say, "Keep Yourself Alive." But that's not a new problem for the band, and they've learned a thing or two about set pacing over the last half century.
It's only fitting that a Queen concert builds to a crescendo over the course of two hours, The final stretch tore through the hits, from the Elvis ode "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" to "Under Pressure" (with Taylor impressively tackling David Bowie's vocal part), the southern-styled "Fat Bottomed Girls" and set-closing "Rhapsody."
The crew — which included Nashville resident Tyler Warren on percussion and vocals — returned to encore with their two unwitting sports anthems, "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions."
Whether you left the arena in a tour bus or spilled back out onto Lower Broadway, chances are you felt like a winner, too.
