Queen on tour 2006

Last month, Prince Charles, aka the Prince of Wales, came and visited the D.C. area. This bit of news did not excite me at all.

But I become very excited when I saw Queen was coming to play in D.C. this coming March. No, not Queen Elizabeth, but Queen, the band.

You see, a long, long time ago, way before I had heard of Martin Denny, and years before I became aware of DEVO and the Clash, I was a huge fan of Queen. Not counting a K-Tel record that led with the track 'Love Will Keep Us Together', Queen's 'A Night at the Opera' was the very first LP that I can remember buying, and for the following 5 years, they were definitely my favorite band. On the night of the Bicentennial, July 4, 1976, rather than go with my family to watch the fireworks in town, I chose to stay home alone and listen to all of the Queen LPs, one by one, cranked loud through my headphones. That's the type of thing 15 year old males did in the 70's.

Unfortunately, Freddie Mercury is no longer with us, and John Deacon is not touring, but that still leaves 2 of the 4 original members, which is good enough for me. Paul Rodgers, former lead singer of Bad Company, will handle the lead vocals for this tour.

I never did get to chance to see them live. So I will look forward to this concert. I'm psyched that I will finally get to hear Roger Taylor sing 'I'm In Love With My Car!'

The tour dates are listed below, in case anyone else is interested.

Vern
P.S. I do, by the way, share a birthday with Queen Elizabeth. Iggy Pop too!

March 3: Miami (American Airlines Arena)
March 5: Jacksonville, Fla. (Veterans Memorial Arena)
March 7: Duluth, Ga. (Gwinnett Center)
March 9: Washington, D.C. (MCI Center)
March 10: Worcester, Mass. (DCU Center)
March 12: Uniondale, N.Y. (Nassau Coliseum)
March 14: Philadelphia (Wachovia Spectrum)
March 16: Toronto (Air Canada Centre)
March 17: Buffalo, N.Y. (HSBC Arena)
March 20: Pittsburgh (Mellon Arena)
March 21: Cleveland (Quicken Loans Arena)
March 23: Rosemont, Ill. (Allstate Arena)
March 24: Auburn Hills, Mich. (Palace of Auburn Hills)
March 26: St. Paul, Minn. (Xcel Energy Center)
March 27: Milwaukee (Bradley Center)
March 31: Glendale, Ariz. (Glendale Arena)
April 1: San Diego (Cox Arena)
April 3: Anaheim, Calif. (Arrowhead Pond)
April 5: San Jose, Calif. (HP Pavilion)
April 7: Las Vegas (MGM Grand Garden Arena)
April 10: Seattle (KeyArena)
April 11: Portland, Ore. (Rose Garden)
April 13: Vancouver (Pacific Coliseum)

Bought my tickets for the San Diego show last week. I can't wait! I'm not a huge Paul Rogers fan, but Brian & Roger make it well worth seeing.

Also, get the "A Night at the Opera" 30th anniversary CD that just came out. It is beyond "remastered". It sounds fantastic! The CD also comes with a DVD with video's for every song and all the songs in 5.1 surround sound.

An interesting side note:

Several years ago, while vacationing at Disneyland, my wife and I were in the Tiki Room. Just before the show started, I looked across the room and saw Brian with his family and a VIP tour guide sitting on a back bench sitting down to watch the show. Several times during the show I looked over to see Brian enjoying the show.

"Fat bottom girls, you make the rock'n world go round"

I think they played the Hollywood Bowl in October of this year. I was seriously thinking of going as the last time Queen toured Los Angeles I was 12 with no one to take me. But after talking to another Queen fan, we concluded the mix with Paul Rodgers was not a good one. So I sat it out. You guys will have to tell me how the show was. And do they ever play more obscure cuts like The Millionaire Waltz? Mach, I am now going to have to hunt down that CD since I have a penchant for old music videos.

Not that it's even the same band (and of course, without Freddie, it's not), but I saw Queen on The Game tour and they were absolutely spectacular. Definitely one of my top 5 concerts of all time. What struck me most was how entertaining they were. They didn't simply rock out, which they did in a huge way, but they staged a terrific show with no sets or props. It was like a combination heavy metal cabaret crossed with a Neil Diamond concert. I would be afraid the new incarnation could never live up to my memory of it.

I missed my first day of High School to see Queen back in 1980. One of the most amazing shows I have EVER seen. That was back when they had the giant crown of lights hovering over the stage. Phenomenal. Billy Squire opened for them, and after a few songs the chants for "Queen... Queen... Queen..." grew so loud that Squire walked off stage, never to return. Queen still came on at their scheduled time, so we sat there for quite awhile staring at a curtain.

On 2005-12-06 23:00, vintagegirl wrote:
... Mach, I am now going to have to hunt down that CD since I have a penchant for old music videos.

Actually, the only true "Video" is the one for "Bohemian Rhapsody". The rest are either generic vintage pictures that go along with the songs or concert footage loosely synced to the studio recording. Still cool though. The sound separation is what really makes the DVD worth while.

I might pick up Queen's Greatest Video Hits if you really just want their videos.

Queen performed in DC last night, and overall, it was a very good show. Those of you who were thinking about buying tickets, but were a bit hesitant - my recommendation is to go ahead and buy tickets.

Paul Rodgers is not Freddie Mercury, but although he does not have the operatic vocal range of Freddie, he does still have a strong voice, which melds in well with the rest of the musicians. He also has a good stage presence, moving around, doing lots of smiling - you can tell that he is having a good time on stage, and that feeling is contagious. Although a few Bad Company and Free songs were played, I never got the feeling that Paul Rodgers was trying to be the flamboyant 'look at me' lead singer. When needed, he stepped back and allowed the other band members, and at certain places, the videos of Freddie Mercury, the limelight.

It was great to finally see Brian May and Roger Taylor, the two original Queen members on this tour, on stage. I felt that if there was an individual star for the concert, it was Brian May. He did several solos, one acoustic at the end of the catwalk ('34', 'Love of My life') and later a 10 minute long guitar solo (with echo delay effects) that was quite nice. Overall, the sound was great - very crisp and clear, and one could easily follow Brian's guitar licks. The friend I went with, who has seen many arena shows, said that this was perhaps the best guitar playing that she had ever seen live - an homage to both Brian May's guitar skills, and a clear sound system.

I always loved drummer Roger Taylor's voice, so it was a real thrill to hear him perform 'I'm In Love With My Car', and later come to the end of the catwalk to sing 'Dragon Attack', 'These Are the Days of Our Lives' (shown with very early 70's black&white Queen footage), and the first part of 'Radio Ga-Ga.' He has that raspy, Rod Stewart-like voice, and I was really impressed with his range and how well he sounded. He also did a drum solo, that was actually quite good and did not fall too much into the typical '70's rock show drum solo' category.

Along with the two original Queen members, and Paul Rodgers, were three other musicians - two guitarists, and a keyboardist, who did their job well.

My favorite songs of the night were the more obscure Queen songs - the above Roger Taylor songs, but also 'Days of Our Lives' and 'The Show Must Go On' If there was a moment when any Queen fan was finally warmed over to Paul Rodgers presence, it was during the song 'The Show Must Go On.' It was nice to finally be able to stand and do the 'Radio Ga Ga' hand clap thing, even if half the crowd seemed to be unaware of it and just stood there.

I felt that some momentum was lost whenever a Bad Company song was played, but it was never really a major downer - just an awareness that these were not songs written by or for Queen. It was hard to feel upset though - Paul Rodgers did such a credible job as lead singer, that it was more of a 'OK, you can perform your songs too' and they were at least decent 70's classic rock songs/riffs.

There were two glitches at the show. During the second song, 'Fat Bottomed Girls', the main speaker system failed, and what was left sounded like a muffled stage monitor system. This took the wind out of some of my initial enthusiasm, but the sound was back to normal within a few songs, and my enthusiasm soon followed. Later in the show, Brian May fell into an orchestral pit (a piano was rising onto stage) but he was unhurt, and continued on as if nothing happened. I don't think many of the audience even noticed this.

Overall, the stagecraft was good and fun to watch. There was nothing really overpowering - no major flames or excessive stage prop gimmicks. The overhead grid structures of stage lighting would raise up and down in slow pattern sequences, which I felt enhanced the show, without being too distractive. Two jumbo screens were on either end of the stage - the quality of these images/closeups was very good, so I can't imagine that too many people in the far reaches were disappointed.

The show was well paced, and there were some very nice moments. I was worried about what the show would be like, but I walked away afterward, quite impressed.

Vern

I saw them on Saturday and loved it! Brian & Roger were amazing. Paul got the job done, but obviously was no Freddie. They did a different version of "We are the Champions" that made the song sound more like a Bad Company tune than Queen - I thought that was odd. One of the best parts was when they did "Bohemian Rhapsody". The way they played footage & audio of Freddie singing the intro brought alot of people literally to tears. Then when the rock part of the song kicks in, Paul & Freddie shared vocals. I thought it was a cool way of doing it. I also liked when Roger stepped out from behind the drums and sang "These Are The Days Of Our Lives" while they showed footage of a very young Queen in Japan. Beisdes all the footage of Freddie, there was also stuff with John as if to say, "we wish you were here on stage with us as well". Overall, I enjoyed the show. Needless to say I liked it better when I saw them back in 1980.