I stayed up late to watch the live stream. Here’s how it went.
First the piano line from “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Lambert sounds good. It’s one verse then into the guitar solo.
Brian May steps to the front of the stage and nails it, as always.
From there Dr. May holds on to a power chord and Roger takes over with the beat and the bass comes in for “Another one Bites the Dust” Very tight.
A couple of verses there…right after the drums-and-voice-only “hey-ee hay aeeay” part Brian has switched to an acoustic guitar for the opening chords of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” It’s good. By verse 2 Brian is back on the Red Special for the fills and solo.
Medley over, they finish off “Crazy” with the big two-chord power ending we’ve all become used to over the years. Great stuff!
Up next it’s “Who Wants To Live Forever”. I believe it was the full song.
Adam Lambert is strong on this, great power when he sings the line “when love must die” Brian’s solo, wonderful as always.
Brian wished the crowd a good evening and introduced the gentlemen from Fun
Fun lead singer Nate Ruess leads Queen through “Somebody to Love”. He does a pretty good job on a very difficult song to sing (ask anyone who’s ever tried it!) When Brian moves downstage center for the solo, there’s a quick cutaway of Ruess and the guitarist from Fun together, both looking astonished to be playing with Queen! Nice moment.
The “Find me someobody to love” part becomes a sing-along. Looks like Roger’s son Rufus playing up there next to his dad.
The very last part is played here at a much faster tempo than we’re all used to hearing in a live perfomance, maybe even double time. New and different, sounds good. Fun guitarist even gets to do a solo next to Brian.
Nate brought Lambert back on stage. We heard the familiar crunchy guitar, bottom string tuned down to a D…even that quick little one measure riff quote from “White Man”
And Roger’s 1-2-3-….into the open of “Fat Bottomed Girls”. Good rendition. Lots of voices, and a really tight band.
Fun gets thanked one last time, Ruess thanks Queen for making a dream come true. Then Roger starts a little pattern, next thing you know it turns in to “Dragon Attack” Brian’s howling guitar is a highlight! Roger goes into the drum solo section briefly. Rufus on stage playing along too.
That transitions straight into a short bit of the fast part of “Bohemian Rhapsody” the headbanging part., just an excerpt.
Then it’s right to the Boom Boom Clap of “We Will Rock You” played with the usual live arrangement from recent years. Very good. As expected, that slides nicely into “We are the Champions” Crowd cutaways show some singing along. It’s the usual full arrangement, nicely done, big ending.
30 minutes total, they packed a lot in!
Big bows at the end. The crowd seemed to really enjoy the Queen set. I did!
None of the above is formally verified, just what I got from watching and jotting down a few notes. I hope it’s all accurate and I hope everyone who wants to gets to see it.
Just watched it, hey it was bloody good, no one can go from song to song like that, always one of Queens trade mark live being able to slide into the next song, AL was on form BM and RT awesome as usual, more please
Damn my phone. Didn't send and then deleted everything I typed.
Agh.
In sum. Enjoyed it. Fun guy flubbed STL pretty badly (supposed to be professional) Ive done better karaoke.
AL sounded better and looked poised. Less pitchy and less bitchy. (Effeminate on ROCK SONGS.... F-U if you've got a problem with my saying that)
Brian was awesome. Yeah did a bum pull off open note but that was nothing to hamper his emotive playing. Wish he'd pulled the vertical guitar pose like the old days. ICON.
Al looked less like Gary Numan/dynamo from the running man this time... looked more like 1989 George Michael sans aviators and bleach (irony? )
Even though it's a set catalogue and AL probably was NEVER really a big fan ("what's the guitarists name again? ) he worked well for that gig beyond his great WWTLF version.
I'm glad that the setlist at setlist.fm still says (Queen cover) underneath every song though.
;-)
Backstage at the iHeartRadio Music Festival, Brian May and Roger Taylor told Kennedy that they first heard Adam Lambert's voice a long time ago. “That’s a voice of a billion." stated Brian May. “Adam can do things which I’ve never heard anyone do in my life.”
Well said ! I have nothing personal against AL but he seems to use vibrato as a remedy to every hard music phrase in any track. On the other hand, his vibrato is better than the last time he was "making Freddie proud" :).
Levon Thyme wrote:
Nate brought Lambert back on stage. We heard the familiar crunchy guitar, bottom string tuned down to a D…even that quick little one measure riff quote from “White Man”
And Roger’s 1-2-3-….into the open of “Fat Bottomed Girls”.
I think Brian used the guyton's guitar for the first time on Fat Bottomed Girls... it sounds more modern and aggressive than the old lady... :-)
The Green Guyton was used on the Q+PR tours and the Q+AL shows last year as a spare. It sounds no different from his home made guitar. The fact it is tuned to drop D for this song gives the sound a slightly harder edge.
In the past he has used a Greg Fryer model for this song, that guitar is built from rosewood, and has hotter pickups. In drop D it does have an edgier darker bite to the sound.
I'm not a fan of Adam Lambert's voice. It's a good voice, but it irritates me when he hits the high notes. I really wish Brian and Roger would take a note from John Deacon and stop with all this Queen+ crap. Let it go!!