Killer Queen

With the passage of time, all the bands that I used to follow in my teens, twenties and beyond are dying out, in many cases literally, as with Queen whom we saw earlier this week.  Minus Freddie Mercury (deceased 1991) and John Deacon (retired wealthy -- see Wikipedia!!) though so with a couple of session guys and the runner up in American Idol a few years back called Adam Lambert who did a really good job though.

I mixed him up with that guy on the current series of The Voice -- Adam something else -- which I think added to Viv's enthusiasm to go to the show with me!

I'd never seen them other than on video unlike Nick who'd seen them at Wembley in the 1980's when they were in their pomp -- he said they were brilliant, so I was interested to see for myself.  A bit morbid I know but I'm ticking off bands I missed out seeing from years ago who've restarted touring to make some money now that nobody's buying their records.

Playing at the Air Canada Centre, they were very impressive indeed.  They'd played here only 2 weeks ago and the demand and response was so strong they added another show at the end of the tour ... this one.

Older of course and interesting to see how the two remaining original guys would take to having someone else singing ... and taking much of the limelight.

Answer was to have extended drum, bass and guitar solos, the last particularly lengthy.  In the old days bands used to stretch out on long solos of course but that was because they didn't have many songs to play so they just strung them out.  Cream was the first to do this so their concerts could last longer than an hour and a bit.  Queen didn't need to do this as their song list is very impressive indeed and could have easily taken up the 2 hours or so with just great song after great song.  Here's the setlist:


Now I'm Here
Stone Cold Crazy
Fat Bottomed Girls
In the Lap of the Gods... Revisited
Seven Seas of Rhye (the first song they played on Top of the Pops incidentally)
Killer Queen
Somebody to Love
I Want It All
Love of My Life
'39
These Are the Days of Our Lives
Bass Solo
Drum Battle
Under Pressure
Dragon Attack
Who Wants to Live Forever
Guitar Solo ...endless segueing into...
Tie Your Mother Down
Radio Ga Ga
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
The Show Must Go On
Bohemian Rhapsody

We Will Rock You
We Are The Champions


Interesting too the way they integrated video of Freddie Mercury into the show in the key songs you cannot imagine anyone but him singing -- Bohemian Rhapsody being a standout of this (see video from first ACC show, great stuff).

But as for the 4th original guy, the one who wrote that fabulous bass intro to "Another One Bites the Dust" and Freddie's coming out song "I want to break free"... well they didn't do them at all and didn't talk about him either.  Wikipedia's recent chit chat about this is quite revealing.

But as for my bucket list, well another one has bitten the dust.  And very well they did it too!

Yes, everyone was on their feet singing "We Are The Champions"