Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Queen + Paul Rogers

I had a last minute invite to see the Queen show last night. I'm a huge fan of a few Queen songs, I think Bohemian Rapsody it probably the best rock song of all time, and like like a few of their other songs, but beyond that I don't care for most of their stuff.

I went to the show with fairly low expectations, I didn't expect Paul's voice to work very well with the Queen songs.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It turned out to be a damn good show. Paul didn't try to imitate Freddy Mercury, he brought his own style to it, and for the most part it worked well. There were afew songs that I didn't think worked at all, especially "another one bites the dust" I never liked that song to begin with, but without Freddy it just didn't work.

Brian May is still an incredible guitar player, he did a lot of singing as well, so did the drummer Roger. They sang some of the parts that Freddy used to sing.

Paul did 4-5 of Bad Company's top hits.

the middle of the show was a little weak I thought, with "Radio Gaga" which I really didn't like, and a couple other tunes I wasn't familiar with. There was a long guitar solor section, a drum solo,etc.

The show finished very strong with Bohemian Rapsodhy, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. They had video clips of Freddy playing on huge screens, and his recorded voice opened the song, it was really a great tribute to Freddy I thought, and since there is no way to replicate his voice in that section, they didn't try to, they just played the recording, from a live show, with the video of him on the piano. The rest of the band was playing live. Then Paul took over the vocals in the chorus. It was very well done I thought.

They finished up with "we will rock you" the big Bad company hit, forget the name, it was a ballad then "we are the champions"

really a very good show. Despite the horrible acoustics in the Shark Tank.

I saw them at the Verizon Center in DC on March 9th and thought it was a great show. Agreed that Paul Rodgers is about as different from Freddie as can be - you would think it an odd pairing, but they pulled it off, alright.

The opening of "Tie Your Mother Down" followed by "Hammer to Fall" gave me new appreciation for those songs. I actually thought Radio Gaga was a highlight, too. I imagined myself at Live Aid clapping with 80,000 Brits at Wembley Stadium. 20,000 at a basketball arena wasn't a bad reality, though.

Got the program and probably will pick up the DVD (which was filmed on their earlier European leg).

Oh, and I got what is now my favorite concert tshirt of all time - it has Freddie in the microphone extended upwards pose and is for the Mercury Phoenix Trust.

Speaking of Queen, they are doing American Idol next week.

Now that I've got to see, to bad Fred is not there.

Please tell me they covered the theme to "Flash Gordon". First album I ever owned.

FLASH! Ah, Aaah - Savior of the universe!

Sadly, no, at least not at the DC show.

That's too bad. Hopefully, they threw you a bone and played something from the movie "Highlander".

I have been thinking of picking up some of the hi-res Queen releases. I think music really misses the talents of Freddy Mercury.

{I think music really misses the talents of Freddy Mercury}

Me, too. He was one of a kind. Wish I had been a concert-goer more in my younger years so that I could have seen him.

I forget what is from Highlander other than "Who Wants to Live Forever", which they did not do. They did do "The Show Must Go On", though...

For the European playlist, which is close to that I saw, check out the
Amazon.com link to the DVD.