Setlist (Order may be out slightly)
Tie your mother down
Don't Stop me now
Save Me
Seven Seas of Rhye
Killer Queen
Stone Cold Crazy
Dragon Attack
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Love of My Life
Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon
I'm in love with my Car
Bohemian Rhapsody
Interval
Under Pressure
I Want it All
Another One bites the Dust
I Want to Break Free
Radio Ga-Ga
Hammer to Fall
Fat Bottomed Girls
Somebody to Love
The Show Must Go on
We Will Rock You
We are the Champions
I only went to this show because I got free tickets, cover bands being fraught with dangers. Any real fans will realise the above setlist is something Queen never did in their entire careers and is totally wrong, both the order and song selection. However therein lies the problem in this country, there are very few real fans, most people owning copies of their greatest hits collections thinking themselves real fans and hence missing out on their best music. This creates a dilemma for the band, they need to play the songs people want to hear to please them, but at the same time they need to strike a balance with the material.
Most Queen songs are very difficult to play, they are complex with numerous key changes, layered harmonies and Freddie Mercury went through various bands before he found May & Taylor who were the only people smart enough to be able to play the music he was writing. The harmonies can't be reproduced live and the multi-tracking, guitar effects and overdubs can't be done to the same degrees as in the studio. Those unfortunate enough to watch the Freddie Mercury tribute concert will know how hard it is for anyone else to sing these songs, and even when they changed keys the songs still sounded terrible. Keeping this in mind I kept all expectations low.
There are certain songs one expects to hear in a Queen concert: Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, We are the Champions, Crazy Little Thing called Love, Love of my Life, Radio Ga-Ga, Under Pressure, Tie your mother down and Another One Bites the Dust. These are some of their biggest world wide hits, the rest are pulled from various stages of their career, balancing popularity with the ability to reproduce the sound live and diversifying between piano, acoustic guitar and various forms of rock. I like to think the band put thought into building the progression of songs as an auditory event, start with a few heavy songs, bring the audience down with some piano numbers, move into the acoustic guitar, then move into some of their poppier songs before gradually building through a progression of rock and anthemic tunes to bring the show to a peak and leave the audience wanting more when they walk off-stage.
The concert started with Tie your mother down, a song Queen rarely opened with, the song being better placed after Bohemian Rhapsody and a poor choice for Australia given its not on most of their compilation albums. I felt I was one of the few people in the audience who recognized it. The guitarist fluffed the first few chords, Australian audiences weren't going to rock away to this and the show was slow to get going. There was the added problem that the guitar was too loud and was feeding back on-stage giving it a grungier sound and drowning out the piano, and vocalist at times. It didn't get any better when they went straight into a few piano based numbers. Don't Stop me now has always sounded terrible live and here they made it sound even worse, Save Me we can do without and Killer Queen is generally a waste of time live. I feared they would do You're My Best Friend, still traumatized by the Queen Live Killers version but I was spared. Seven Seas of Rhye is always good but the guitarist stuffed up the guitar screech in the intro and then drowned out the classic piano riff. Throw in Dragon Attack, a poor selection for a choice album track, sounding very bland, and a version of Stone Cold Crazy that sounded more like Metallica's version then Queens as the guitar was feeding back, and half way through the first half and I wasn't overly impressed.
Then the concert changed tack. It slowly improved with Crazy Little thing called love but the instrumental section was a little boring without Brian May's signature sound. Then the vocalist opened a dialogue with the audience. He didn't impress me at first, the entire band was dressed in black and very boring. However he told us they were going to play a few songs from A Night at the Opera. The guitarist went off stage and they did a beautiful piano version of love of my life instead of using the acoustic guitar. It worked really well. Then the guitarist stayed off stage and they played Lazing on a Sunday afternoon, something Queen haven't even played live since their 1976 tour of Japan. Then throw in I'm in love with my Car sung by their drummer (the song was written by Queen's drummer and also sung live by him), and then all of a sudden I was starting to warm to them. I'm in love with my car still features my favourite line in the history of music, "Told my girl I had to forget her, rather buy me a new carburetor!"
We were then treated to a pretty good rendition of Bo Rap with the band going off stage in the middle part of the show and playing the video, just like Queen. They finished the song off really well and then walked offstage for the interval leaving us wanting more. It was weird having an interval for a rock concert and after a packet of chips I returned only to have to get back into the show again. The 2nd half was considerably better then the first, even though it took the crowd a few songs to get back into it. This was helped by a considerably better set-list with the band doing reasonable versions of I Want to Break Free and Radio Ga Ga with the crowd highlight of Another One Bites the Dust. As bad as this song sounds live I have to admit the crowd really get into it and this got the audience on-side as they churned out their other hits. The highlight was easily Somebody to Love, surely one of their most difficult songs to do live yet they went with it. They stopped the song half way through to introduce the entire band with each member doing a little solo. Highlights were riffs from Ogre Battle and Let me Entertain you - a treat for the real fans. The singer really hit the high notes, doing Freddie Mercury and Aretha Franklin, the person for whom Freddie wrote the song, proud. They left the stage at this point returning for the encore.
The encore was really for the sake of completeness, doing a stirring rendition of the Show Must go on. This is one of the better songs from late period Queen, which featured their most personal and reflective music as they had a lead singer about to die, so most of it is inappropriate for a concert, unless you want to make everyone cry. That wouldn't bother me at all. We were then treated to the traditional finish to a Queen concert featuring We Will Rock you and We are the Champions. A staple since 1977, they did pretty good versions of these songs but it was really more a chance to get the audience to sing along. They didn't finish with God Save the Queen, maybe the band banned them. Everyone left well pleased I think, the 2nd half certainly left us on a high. Despite the sound problems with the guitar, I think my ears adjusted for this as the concert went on and the mixers did what they could to solve the problem of guitar drowning everything else out. Also, most of the songs in the 2nd half of the concert sound better live, with audience participation sections helping things along.
Queen had that rare ability to write songs people can sing along to and I think that is the appeal of a cover band. I've seen cover bands before and they were all quite good and this was probably only 2nd to MayQueen, a German cover band. Once I overlooked the bands flaws I was able to enjoy the show. The guitar doesn't sound quite right but the Red Special is hard to replicate given Brian May built it from the wood in a 19th century fireplace including his own electronics. Pretty easy to do when you have a PHD in Astrophysics and Honors in Maths and Physics. I don't think anyone left disappointed and with the band promising to learn some of their early songs its definitely worth seeing them again.
Concerts are generally difficult for me to enjoy because I get so used to the sound on the albums and have strong opinions on what they should play live based on what would sound best. However I have to remind myself that Queen always had a deliberate strategy which combined marketing with music. They always intended to make their music as diverse as possible in order to capture more markets and increase sales. They didn't mix pop with rock, heavy metal, opera, jazz, classical, funk, disco and numerous other styles simply because they could and were bored. They recognized they couldn't reproduce the sound on the album's live so reworked many of their songs giving them a different sound and treating the audience to a full blown stage show inspired by Glam Rock and incorporating many elements which are now common place in concerts such as expansive lighting rigs, smoke machines & various other props. Doing all that at a time when tours had no sponsorship meant they paid for it out of their own pockets in order to entertain their fans. So consequently concerts are much more enjoyable now from any band you might like as they developed techniques which have since evolved.
If you don't believe me watch 1985's Live Aid concert in full and you'll see just how bad most bands sounded live and how much better Queen sounded in comparison. This is a good thing to do on a day when you're home from work sick. The sleep will do you good.
