Last night, Jim and I went to see "Queen: It's a Kinda Magic" at the Landmark Theatre. We had excellent seats (6th row!), and I didn't know what to expect.
Well, let me tell you: this show was simultaneously Uber-cool and slightly cheese-tastic. Therefore, it was completely and utterly fabulous.
Let me give you a little background: "Queen: It's a Kinda Magic", which completed a twelve-city tour of America last night here in lowly Syracuse, is one-part tribute band, one-part theater--putting on all the same costumes that Freddie used to wear (and at least one Brian May poufy shirt that made Jim reference the Seinfeld episode), referring to the band members by their "character" names, and reproductions of the instruments and lighting right down to a replica of the Red Special that the kid who portrays Brian May uses. (Although the guitar doesn't look or sound exactly like the Red Special, which is part of the problem--only that guitar really sounds like that guitar.) The idea is to recreate a classic Queen concert, and in this it nearly succeeds.
The moment that "Freddie" (Craig Pesco) walked on-stage, Jim leaned over to me and said, "He looks a lot more like Ron Guidry than Freddie Mercury." Absolutely correct. I'd believe Pesco to be Gator's long-lost brother. And no one--absolutely no one on this planet--could completely reproduce how Freddie Mercury sounded. Pesco did an admirable job, mind, but I am spoiled rotten in the vocals department: I married a Super-Tenor who can still full-voice a D (he did it last night). I had half a mind to stick around and advise good ol' "Freddie" that anything above an A was completely and utterly off-limits to him unless he switched to falsetto.
I mean, he did an excellent job of swaggering about the stage in that ubiquitous Freddie way, wearing the costumes with panache and a great deal of exuberance, and putting in the false teeth to get that special Freddie look.
As for the other band members, "Roger Taylor" (Brett Millican) wore a wig that made both Jim and I think that he might be a girl for a while, "John Deacon" (Mitch Cairns) was probably the best musician on-stage (and a fair bassist, I'll give him that), and "Brian May" (Travis Hair) honestly looked like he was about 21, and except for the hair (which was his own, at least) looked about as much like Brian May as I do. That is not to say that these men did not put their all into the performance--they did. They provided pretty decent background vocals that were accurate and played their instruments well. Again, I am spoiled: no guitarist I see in concert holds a candle to Phil Keaggy (the acoustic master of the Universe) or Vivian Campbell (who is a total genius); what bassist could possibly play better than John Taylor (I'm biased, but I've seen him in concert recently and he is still my money for what a bassist should be); and quite frankly I watched "Roger" play his extended solo and thought: "Okay, he's decent, but I've heard Mike Russ play that, and Mike did it better." (The only drummers that really impress me these days are [yes, still] Carl Palmer and Neil Peart.)
All that aside, what this concert did was make me want to listen to more Queen music, which in and of itself is a complete gift. When I stop to realize how differently Freddie and Brian (and Roger and John, for that matter) heard the musical world, how they made chords come together in ways that no one else did at that time, I shake my head in amazement. Queen has been a direct or indirect influence on much of the music we hear today on the radio and was seminal in creating my beloved New Wave music, even if that isn't what they performed. What they did in the 70s changed music for the better, and I am eternally grateful. I hope I get to tell them that, someday.
For now, all I hear is Radio Ga Ga...
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