Artist | Queen + Paul Rodgers |
---|---|
Date | 07.11.2008 |
Venue | O2 Arena |
City | London |
Country | UK |
Setlist | 01. Intro: Cosmos Rockin' [tape] 02. Surf's Up... School's Out [intro tape only] 03. Hammer To Fall (fast version) 04. Tie Your Mother Down 05. Fat Bottomed Girls 06. Another One Bites The Dust 07. I Want It All 08. I Want To Break Free 09. C-lebrity 10. Surf's Up... School's Out 11. Seagull 12. Maybe It's Because I'm A Londoner 13. Love Of My Life (Brian on vocals) 14. '39 (Brian on vocals) 15. Bass solo (Danny + Roger) 16. Drum Solo 17. I'm In Love With My Car (Roger on vocals) 18. A Kind Of Magic (Roger on vocals) 19. Say It's Not True (Roger, Brian and Paul on vocals) 20. Voodoo 21. Bad Company 22. We Believe 23. Guitar Solo 24. Bijou (Freddie's studio vocals) 25. Last Horizon 26. Radio Ga Ga 27. Crazy Little Thing Called Love 28. The Show Must Go On 29. Bohemian Rhapsody 30. Cosmos Rockin' 31. All Right Now 32. We Will Rock You 33. We Are The Champions 34. God Save The Queen |
Support band | none or unknown |
Attendance | 16000 |
Audio recording | Length: 143:08 Quality: VG [an average audience recording] No download link available |
Video - information | no info available |
Bits and pieces | Brian played the traditional folk song Maybe It's Because I'm A Londoner just before Love Of My Life. |
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) |
Photos supplied by: Zbigniew Kaminski, Peter Williams, Sarah Watkin
The second O2 concert, my last, was on 7 November 2008. I hadn’t reckoned on the superb location of my seat – right on the edge with a clear view across the stage and the prospect of Paul and Brian coming up close! Even before the start, I could witness lots of goings on – techies moving here and there, the testing of the guitars as well as the dry ice!
When the concert got underway, I realised that I had quite a panoramic view of everyone on stage – except for Roger, who was hidden from view behind a pile of speakers. So I had to be satisfied with seeing him on screen, with a clear view only later on, when he emerged to do his stint on the catwalk.
So early on, I could clearly see Brian’s broken guitar string, then, as time went on, a dropped sixpence (or so it appeared), which he famously uses as a plectrum, and I could see how Spike, Jamie and Danny were completely immersed in their respective contributions.
Paul sometimes wore a broad smile as he came near in the early stages of the show. People had got to know ‘C-lebrity’ well enough to participate. ‘Surf’s Up…School’s Out’ gave us another chance to witness an innovation that Paul had brought to Queen gigs – the harmonica.
At the start of the B stage section, Brian sang us a rendition of ‘Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner’ to celebrate being back home. Local pieces would also turn up in the European shows, such as ‘The Blue Danube’ in Vienna.
Of the songs performed on the catwalk, three were from ‘A Night at the Opera’. During ‘Love of my Life’, the screen was showing members of the audience close to the front, singing along to Brian’s crystal-clear acoustic.
Brian introduced the next number by saying that a critic of a recent gig had described their harmonies on ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ as “suspiciously perfect”. He introduced “The Rev. Jamie Moses”, a title used in other concerts, and the “suspiciously perfect” Roger and Spike and said, “I’m telling you it won’t be perfect because it’s just us here!” As if to prove the point, he made mistakes on some of the lyrics on the next two numbers for which he had singing parts, but what do we care?
This time I particularly noticed the persiflage of Roger’s double act with Danny for the ‘drum and bass’ solo. When Roger launched into ‘I’m in Love with my Car’, he could equally have been singing about that ‘machine’ that is his drum kit – the way it glittered and sparkled with every beat.
There followed ‘A Kind of Magic’ with a guitar solo as rich as a chocolate cake. Roger and Brian were running full hammer together with an additional turbo boost from the audience. They’d picked up on the smooth fluffiness of the duet and so provided the momentum to keep it going.
Then I witnessed ‘Voodoo’ performed live for the first time; for this Roger returned to his main stage drums, doing a little ‘soul move’ on the way as the introduction was being played. Here again was a novelty introduced by Paul – a blues number, and a chance to show off how good his voice sounded in this genre. He had adapted himself brilliantly to Queen’s history too, bringing with that a new, shared legacy.