Concert detail

Basic information

Artist	Queen + Paul Rodgers
Date	01.10.2008
Venue	Olympiahalle
City	Munich
Country	Germany
Setlist	01. Intro: Cosmos Rockin' [tape] 02. Surf's Up... School's Out 03. Tie Your Mother Down 04. Fat Bottomed Girls 05. Another One Bites The Dust 06. I Want It All 07. I Want To Break Free 08. C-lebrity 09. Seagull 10. Love Of My Life (Brian on vocals) 11. '39 (Brian on vocals) 12. Bass solo (Danny + Roger) 13. Drum Solo 14. I'm In Love With My Car (Roger on vocals) 15. A Kind Of Magic (Roger on vocals) 16. Say It's Not True (Roger, Brian and Paul on vocals) 17. Bad Company 18. Feel Like Makin' Love 19. Guitar Solo 20. Bijou (Freddie's studio vocals) 21. Last Horizon 22. Radio Ga Ga 23. Crazy Little Thing Called Love 24. The Show Must Go On 25. Bohemian Rhapsody 26. Cosmos Rockin' 27. All Right Now 28. We Will Rock You 29. We Are The Champions 30. God Save The Queen
Support band	none or unknown
Attendance	9500
Audio recording	Length: 136:08 Quality: VG+ [a very enjoyable recording] No download link available
Video - information	no info available
Bits and pieces	For '39 the band came in some Bavarian hats (it looked embarassing but the audience seemed to love it :-) Brian messed up the solo in All Right Now. Before the show the band rehearsed We Believe and Runaway but none of that was played at the concert :-)
Line-up	Paul Rodgers (lead vocals, acoustic guitar) Brian May (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, lead/backing vocals) Roger Taylor (drums, lead/backing vocals) Jamie Moses (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, backing vocals) Danny Miranda (bass guitar, backing vocals) Spike Edney (keyboards, backing vocals)

Memorabilia

ticket stub
(from my own collection)

concert program
(from my own collection)

concert poster
(from my own collection)

concert poster
(from my own collection)

Photos

Photos supplied by: Sarah Watkin

Fan stories

Written by oberpfalznet.de (translated by Alison Sesi)

Munich. ‘It’s a Kind of Magic’ – Yes! A phenomenal appearance: ‘One Dream, One Soul, One Prize’. 17 years after the death from Aids of their charismatic front man Freddie Mercury, the remainder of the British group Queen rocked the Olympiahalle, which was full to the brim, on Wednesday evening. The 12,000 totally enthused fans raised the roof as the ‘new one’, Paul Rodgers, sang the wildly acclaimed classic ‘We Are The Champions’.

By now it is supposed that even ex-master of ceremonies Freddie, who is sitting up on his cloud casting a long shadow over the stage, is getting the lighter out of his pocket. Because such a rhythm could not elude anyone. Of course, guitarist Brian May built on the fact that most were proficient Queen fans – people who could sing every line off by heart.

‘The Cosmos Rocks’ tour began with lightning and thunder and an enormous meteor shower. There was particular excitement over 58-year old Paul Rodgers, the former singer with Free and Bad Company, a blues trained bellower who is among the top-ranking of his craft. Would he carry off the hard rock-focused Queen sound? The warm-up songs ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’, ‘I Want It All’, ‘I Want To Break Free’, convinced us. Rodgers added his own touch to them.

The songs from the new album were not out of line, fitting seamlessly into the overall artistry. At the centre of the show was Brian May, the doctor of astrophysics, who excelled on the typical Queen guitar broadsides. He was the one who was constantly talking to the audience. “We were at the Oktoberfest yesterday”, he declared in faultless German. “We had a lot of fun”. As proof, he was adorned with a costume hat and was swinging a kitschy singing beer tankard from the festival grassland.

50 per cent of the show was staged on the catwalk, which allowed the musicians to perform well into the crowd of howling fans. Rodgers was brandishing his microphone stand and May added garnish with poses and crazy guitar sounds. In the event, both of the active members of Queen, May and drummer Roger Taylor, joined together right at the front for a fabulous hillbilly number. Taylor was awarded extra applause for a fantastic drum solo at the close of which he sang ‘Say It’s Not True’.

Now there was one hit after another. ‘The Show Must Go On’, ‘Radio Ga Ga’ – which was supported by sequences from the silent film ‘Metropolis’ – ‘We Will Rock You’. A few times Freddie was paid homage via the video screen and integrated into the show. There was a moving ‘goose pimple’ feeling with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Here Mercury sang entirely alone at the beginning, accompanied only by his old sidekicks May and Taylor. Great idea at the end of the song: The Mercury – Rodgers duet.

A tremendous light show, an excellent zapped up sound, powerful beats and a conveyor belt of hits. Less theatrical bombastics than in the 70s and 80s, but instead, thanks to Rodgers, more blues rock. Queen were worth every cent of the entrance fee. And singer Paul Rodgers could, as an added extra, deliver Bad Company’s ‘Feel Like Making Love’ and, as the penultimate encore, the Free Classic ‘All Right Now’. The arena was a sea of waving arms.

Written by Lisa Sonnabend, Süddeütsche Zeitung (translated by Alison Sesi)

Even without the charismatic Freddie Mercury, the Queen concert in the Olympiahalle Munich was impressive - as singer Paul Rodgers does not attempt to imitate him.

Brian May donned a traditional green costume hat and walked slowly along the catwalk which stretched almost into the middle of the Olympiahalle. May took his guitar, bowed and said, “Let’s sing it for Freddie”. Then he quietly started to sing ‘Love Of My Life’. The audience, deeply moved, sang along.

In 1991 the singer of the legendary rock band Queen, Freddie Mercury, died of AIDS. But that did not mean that it was finally all over for the band. For a few years now. guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor have already been appearing with Paul Rodgers, the former singer of ‘Free’ and ‘Bad Company’. This year the three of them have even released a new album and are currently on tour under the name ‘Queen and Paul Rodgers’.

A lot of people would certainly have thought that Queen without the charismatic Freddie Mercury was like the CSU in Bavaria without an absolute majority. But the past few days have shown that both are possible - and can also be absolutely effective. Even a band like Queen, for whom the singer took so much the centre stage, can exist without him - at least to a large degree.

It is the glamour, the big feeling, the irony and the virtuosity, hallmarks of Queen, which May and Taylor still manage to put across, as, for example, in the scene described at the beginning.

The new singer Paul Rodgers has also mastered his task well. He does not, thank God, try to imitate Freddie Mercury. Rodgers was wearing plain black trousers and a t-shirt – no comparison to Freddie Mercury’s extravagant costumes. His gestures are constrainedly non-glamorous; only sometimes twirling the microphone stand through the air as the Queen singer once did. The 58-year-old looks decidedly more like DJ Bobo than Mercury.

Rodgers' voice is more mellow, it has more blues, but carries the great Queen hits just as it is – and there were plenty of them to be heard at the show: ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, ‘Radio Ga Ga’. Within a good two hours, almost all were played.

With the songs from the new album, ‘The Cosmos Rocks’, Queen and Paul Rodgers were, by contrast, more restrained. Songs like ‘C-lebrity’ compare badly with the Queen classics. They are clumsier, simpler and plainer. The atmosphere in the audience immediately sank. After all, most fans had come stand in quiet remembrance, to grieve a little for Freddie and to enjoy the show.

In the background, video animations were running, May and Taylor establishing the tempo. At one point, drummer Roger Taylor sat at the front of the catwalk beating a drum. Bit by bit his drum kit was put together by the crew, and bit by bit he built up the rhythm. He even sang ‘It’s A Kind Of Magic’. For ten minutes Taylor stood alone in the spotlight – in former times that would have been unthinkable. The show is different from that of the Queen epoch, but it is still good.

At the end Freddie Mercury did appear on the stage. On the big screen, the singer was seen singing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Presentations from earlier performances were faded in with May and Taylor playing and Rodgers standing down to the left of the stage. It was not like that with Freddie Mercury. Still, the clock cannot now be turned back.