Queen: The Complete Works (141 page)

Still, the critical response was, just like the 2005 leg, mostly positive. Miami’s
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
was overly apologetic for the low turn-out on the first night: “One would think that a venue as massive as the AmericanAirlines Arena and a band as monumental as Queen would be ideally suited for each other. Sadly, though, on the opening night of the legendary ‘70s rock group’s first major tour since the death of their lead singer, the arena was full of empty seats and half-hearted fans. Until the final 60 minutes and the band’s awe-inspiring encore, even those in the front rows stood placidly, awaiting a call to action from their aging idols.” Duluth’s
Forsyth County News
praised to Paul but wrote that “the highlight of the
show was seeing Brian May play live. May plays the guitar the way an expert marksman would shoot a rifle, taking out one incredible riff at a time. I had no idea how unique his playing style was until I saw him live. He hits every note with melodic precision, and then without warning he would switch from rifle to machine gun and absolutely blow the crowd away. As impressive as Mercury’s writing and singing was, it turns out that the styling of May’s guitar is as equally defining as the heart of Queen. Roger Taylor’s casual drumming style is equally as unique and it was great to see the two Queen veterans back in the limelight ... It will be interesting to see if the band decides to write together and we can see what happens when operatic rock and roll meets the dirty South.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer
wrote, “Having the bluesy belter from Bad Company replace the campy, operatic Mercury was akin to replacing the cast of
Desperate Housewives
with guys from
The Sopranos
. Yet the audience that sold out the Wachovia Spectrum on Tuesday night found it could be done. Sonically, Queen is the same as it ever was. Guitarist May’s towering glissandos and drummer Taylor’s chunky rhythms were in place. May rather touchingly sang ‘Love Of My Life’, which he called ‘Freddie’s love song.’ Taylor did his creepy smash, ‘I’m in Love With My Car’, as well as Mercury’s synth-slick ‘Radio Ga Ga’ ... Oddly, Rodgers’ own material – like his soul-metal ‘Bad Company’ – fit right in with Queen’s sleekly crunchy harangue. While Rodgers upped the gruffness, Queen turned ‘Feel Like Makin’ Love’ from casually cool to shuck-jiving.”

Milwaukee’s
Journal Sentinel
reported a tender moment: “About halfway through, May took the front of the stage alone to sing Freddie’s ballad ‘Love of My Life’. Before he could begin, he had to wait for a prolonged wave of applause to subside. ‘People of Milwaukee,’ he told the crowd, ‘I wasn’t feeling very glam tonight, so you’ve given me a lift.’ Clearly, the feeling was reciprocal.” Anaheim’s
Orange County Register
offered a warm welcome: “As steadfast Queen devotees who trekked out to the Hollywood Bowl last October know, this wasn’t the re-established outfit’s first or even sole chance at re-proving itself. Perhaps that’s why Monday night’s heartier return, at the Pond, didn’t come close to selling out. When you charge people $200 a ticket for what’s billed as one of just two North American dates – and the only one in the Western half of the U.S. – they tend not to turn out when you come back a little more than five months later on a fully-fledged tour. Yet here’s the real stinker for those who went then but not now: You missed the better, more rocking show ... A new tune, which I’ll guess is titled ‘Take Love Where You Find It’, suggests there’s more life left to this mash-up – and that Queen’s singular sonics could add girth to Rodgers’ melodies. But even if it remains nothing more than a tribute act, it deserves a continued run. In an era of misguided revivals – I’ve heard the New Cars, and you shouldn’t – this reconstituted Queen is that rare attraction worth seeing more than once.”

The final night, as reported in the
Vancouver Sun
, was the show to see: “It was a thrill to see the big presence that is the long, curly haired May, who shared the spotlight with Rodgers almost throughout. May is one of rock‘n’roll’s greatest guitarists after all, and Rodgers knows what it’s like to work with the best. As promised, he’s too great a musician to want to attempt an impersonation of Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991. Unlike the Doors of the 21st Century show that played at the same venue last summer, Queen with Paul Rodgers is not a case of a veteran band needing to replace its frontman with a look-alike that sounds-alike. Rodgers doesn’t look or sound like Queen’s famous frontman Freddie Mercury, which was just fine with the mixed ages audience. Nobody would have come expecting a straight ahead Queen concert. This version is really a supergroup, a retrospective combo of Queen and Rodgers’ legendary Bad Company and Free ... So great was the shared feeling for the power of musically pure, tastefully revisited old rock‘n’roll, that it may go down in history as the night that arena rock officially made its comeback. At least for those of us who didn’t experience it the first time around.”

ROCK THE COSMOS TOUR

12 SEPTEMBER TO 29 NOVEMBER 2008

Musicians:
Brian May
(guitars, vocals, lead vocal on ‘Song’, acoustic guitar)
, Roger Taylor
(drums, vocals, lead vocal on ‘Song’, upright bass assistance)
, Paul Rodgers
(vocals, acoustic guitar on ‘Song’, piano on ‘Song’)
, Spike Edney
(piano, keyboards, keytar, vocals)
, Danny Miranda
(bass guitar, vocals)
, Jamie Moses
(guitars, vocals)

Repertoire:
‘Cosmos Rockin”’
(intro tape)
/ ‘Surf’s Up . . . School’s Out !’
(intro tape)
, ‘Hammer To Fall’, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’, ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, ‘I Want It All’, ‘I Want To Break Free’, ‘C-lebrity’, ‘Surf’s Up . . . School’s Out !’, ‘Seagull’, ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘’39’, Bass Solo / Drum Solo, ‘I’m
In Love With My Car’, ‘A Kind Of Magic’, ‘Say It’s Not True’, ‘Bad Company’, ‘We Believe’, Guitar Solo, ‘Bijou’, ‘Last Horizon’, ‘Radio Ga Ga’, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘The Show Must Go On’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Cosmos Rockin’, ‘All Right Now’, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘God Save The Queen’, ‘Shooting Star’, ‘One Vision’, ‘Wishing Well’, ‘Warboys (A Prayer For Peace)’, ‘Feel Like Makin’ Love’, ‘Time To Shine’, ‘The Stealer’, ‘Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)’, ‘Tavaszi Szél Vizet Áraszt’, ‘Blue Danube Waltz’, ‘Voodoo’, ‘Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner’, ‘Under Pressure’

Itinerary:

12 September, Freedom Square, Kharkov, Ukraine

15 September, Olympic Sports Complex, Moscow, Russia

16 September, Olympic Sports Complex, Moscow, Russia

19 September, Arena, Riga, Latvia

21 September, Velodrom, Berlin, Germany

23 September, Sportpaleis, Antwerp, Belgium

24 September, Bercy, Paris, France

26 September, Palalottomatica, Rome, Italy

28 September, Arena, Milan, Italy

29 September, Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switzerland

1 October, Olympiahalle, Munich, Germany

2 October, SAP Arena, Mannheim, Germany

4 October, TUI Arena, Hanover, Germany

5 October, Color Line Arena, Hamburg, Germany

7 October, Ahoy, Rotterdam, Holland

8 October, Rockhal, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

10 October, Arena, Nottingham

11 October, SECC, Glasgow, Scotland

13 October, O2 Arena, London

14 October, Arena, Cardiff, Wales

16 October, NIA, Birmingham

18 October, Echo Arena, Liverpool

19 October, Arena, Sheffield

22 October, Palau Sant Jordi, Barcelona, Spain

24 October, Estadio de Futbol “La Condomina”, Murcia, Spain

25 October, Palacio de Deportes, Madrid, Spain

28 October, Arena, Budapest, Hungary

29 October, Belgrade Arena, Belgrade, Serbia

31 October, O2 Arena, Prague, Czech Republic

1 November, Stadthalle, Vienna, Austria

4 November, Arena, Newcastle

5 November, MEN Arena, Manchester

7 November, O2 Arena, London

8 November, Wembley Arena, London

14 November, Festival City, Dubai, UAE

19 November, San Carlos de Apoquindo, Santiago de Chile, Chile

21 November, Estadio Velez Sarsfield, Buenos Aires, Argentina

26 November, Via Funchal, São Paulo, Brazil

27 November, Via Funchal, São Paulo, Brazil

29 November, HSBC Arena, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

With the 2005/2006
Return Of The Champions
tour over and done with, Brian, Roger, and Paul came to a general consensus that the partnership shouldn’t end just yet. “It was amazing how seamlessly our different styles fit together,” Paul told
Rolling Stone
in May 2008. “We came offstage really buzzed about it and said, ‘Let’s do some more.’” Throughout 2007 and 2008, the trio worked on songs for their debut album, but the elation of the tour still lingered on. “We didn’t know we were doing the right thing until the tour started in earnest,” Roger said in
Classic Rock
magazine. “Then it got better and better, and by the time the American dates ended that decision had been vindicated.” Brian agreed: “Reaction-wise there were nights when I thought, ‘Gosh, this is the equal of anything in the past’. It was utterly ecstatic.”

Sessions for
The Cosmos Rocks
took up most of the band’s creative time, but by March 2008, plans had been solidified for an extensive world tour to begin in September in the Ukraine, with further dates in Europe, the UK, and Latin America, with a trek to the US planned for early 2009. Because of his high-profile website, where fans can easily write in, Brian was inundated with complaints by irate fans of the selected venues, with an Irish fan named Jim getting under the guitarist’s skin by calling it a “disgrace” that Queen + Paul Rodgers didn’t book anything in Ireland. Shocked at this reaction, Brian wrote a tongue-in-cheek entry on his website that apologized to the collective countries from selected “arm-chair” fans, before joking that the whole thing be called off. This was brought up in a
Classic Rock
magazine interview, which Brian laughingly shrugged off: “People don’t realize that you can’t always get the halls you want. And of course, the fans can also travel. We’re doing our fair share of that.”

A crass statement, perhaps, especially considering the economic crunch that fans were already feeling with the worldwide collapse of the banks in the autumn of 2008. But in the band’s defence, they were indeed traveling to new and exciting places: the tour
kicked off in Kharkov, with first-time performances in Moscow, Latvia, Serbia, Prague and Dubai. South American dates were planned tentatively for the end of November, and Hollywood Records was confident that a North American leg would occur in the early part of 2009. Of course, the expected venues in Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Rome and Zürich, as well as a handful of “hometown” cities (Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, and London), were also planned, and Brian expressed enthusiasm for the upcoming tour on his website, overjoyed that he was finally going to be mix new music with the hits for the first time in ten years. Roger and Paul, meanwhile, hit the print presses, drumming up interest well before the band hit the road.

“I don’t want us to feel just like old guys playing the hits,” Roger told
Rolling Stone
that May. “Hopefully [this new album] will be a creative rebirth for us.” Paul agreed in an interview with Australia’s
The Courier Mail
in September, but was a bit more cautious for the band’s long-term goals: “The reason I came together with Brian and Roger is because it feels good musically and I’ll only do it, I will only do this for as long as it feels good. We’re only committed to the end of this tour and there are no commitments beyond that so it will remain to be seen if we even continue after that.” The singer also felt compelled to reaffirm his status as a singer, and that he had no intent on mimicking Freddie: “It had to work on a musical level for me. I’m a musician. I’m a singer and a songwriter. I have great respect for what Freddie did, he was flamboyant, he was a showman, a great frontman, very entertaining and people loved him, and it was great for magazines too because it was great copy. But you see, that’s not who I am. The only way I could do this was to actually just be myself, which is much more down to earth. Sorry. Perhaps I’m a little boring, but I’m just me.”

The tour began on 12 September in Kharkov, at a concert organized weeks before it was performed, with the well-intentioned message: “Don’t Let AIDS Ruin Your Life”. Unusually, this was recorded and filmed professionally by David Mallet, marking the first instance by Queen that the kick-off date of a tour was to be released publically. This was a bold move, considering the set list hadn’t been finalized yet, and followed a little too closely to the 2005/2006 tour. Indeed, as the tour hit its stride throughout the coming weeks, the band would become more adventurous, with new and some previously unplayed songs introduced as the band’s confidence grew. Unfortunately, there was a sameness with the previous tour’s set, with most of the same songs retained, and only a few swapped out for new ones. But what was new was interesting: ‘One Vision’ made a return to the set as an abbreviated opener, and ‘Bijou’ was given its live premiere in a unique tribute to Freddie: while Brian played the mournful guitar live, Freddie’s studio vocals were pumped through the massive sound system as visions of the singer flashed on the screen above the stage. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, too, was performed similar to the 2005/2006 tour, with Freddie’s vocals this time taken from the
Queen Rock Montreal
DVD. ‘’39’ was performed as a half duo, half full band arrangement: after ‘Love Of My Life’, a bass drum was placed next to Brian on the B-stage, and Roger ran down the catwalk to join his friend. After one verse and chorus, Brian would stop the song as roadies set up additional microphones behind him, and the guitarist would call the rest of the band down to assist with vocal harmonies and instruments. Roger’s drum solo was different, too: instead of ‘Let There Be Drums’, Roger would start off with a bass and snare drum, and as he pounded away, roadies would assemble a kit around him, and as it came to a thundering conclusion, the band would launch into ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ – which clearly made Roger breathless on more than one occasion.