Reviewed on Tuesday August 26 (photo by Ashley Mar)
It’s Queen’s first Australian tour in nigh on 30 years, and the absence of their late frontman Freddie Mercury isn’t so much the elephant in the room: as the fans take their seats, there are more than a couple of Mercury lookalikes dressed up around the arena, some more convincingly than others. Adam Lambert takes Mercury’s place onstage, and for a while, there’s something deeply cynical about the whole occasion.
That’s not Lambert’s fault, either; not even the harshest of critics would expect him to fairly compare. No, it’s the stench of corporate enterprise around Queen’s very presence on this stage, joined by the five or six fans who’d forked out more than $1,200 apiece to stand behind the keyboardist and dance awkwardly for a couple of hours (a place in the centre of the front rows cost a mere $764.50). It’s not like Brian May and Roger Taylor need the money – somehow, We Will Rock You lasted on London’s West End for 12 years, and the royalties can’t have dried up just yet.
The show gets off to an ambling start, despite the enormous set, light show and Lambert’s gold-studded leather outfit. The curtain lifts for ‘Now I’m Here’, then it’s ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ and a disappointing ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ (on which Lambert messes up a lyric and gets the crowd to clap along on the one and three… oh dear). Initially, Queen and friends seem a fragile stencil of the band that once was, and all the spectacle in the world can’t help them – and this for the band that invented spectacle.
But then, in a display that would make Freddie proud, it’s Lambert who turns the performance around with a simple gesture. Draping himself over a red and gold-coloured chaise longue, with champagne bottle in hand and enormous, glittering heels on foot, the singer kicks back and laughs as ‘Killer Queen’ plays in the background. Just like that, it’s as if the quirky humour that ‘classic’ Queen always dealt in heavy doses has returned, personified in their fresh-faced American mouthpiece. Next, Lambert stands and thanks the audience, with all sincerity, for “suspending your disbelief”.
Now Queen are present, and all their finest songs hit the mark. ‘Somebody To Love’, ‘I Want It All’, ‘Under Pressure’, ‘Radio Ga Ga’ and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ please a capacity crowd. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ gets a clever treatment, with Mercury appearing via video from his prime to share verses with Lambert, though the first half of the track is canned altogether (it’s hard enough replacing one Freddie, let alone 20 of him). ‘We Are The Champions’ is the last of the encores, and the show winds up as an unbeatable tribute to Queen in their prime. An expensive one, perhaps – but at least it’s not We Will Rock You.
