Queen + Adam Lambert review: Rock and roll royalty’s commanding Adelaide Oval performance
Adelaide Oval was the perfect setting for Queen’s sporting anthem classics, but the full scope of their songwriting talents was on show in their epic 33-song set, writes Craig Cook.
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Rock and roll royalty came to town with Queen’s spectacular command performance of the band’s Rhapsody tour at Adelaide Oval on Wednesday night.
A sold-out crowd of more than 50,000 packed the parklands stadium to celebrate the creative genius and legendary hits of the group formed in London 50 years ago.
Among the legion of South Australian fans were many who saw Queen a first time in Adelaide at the Apollo Entertainment Centre in 1976.
From the opening strains of Innuendo, from Queen’s final album recorded with legendary showman Freddie Mercury in 1991, this was guaranteed to be a memorable event.
Where other famous bands, notably INXS, have failed to replace an iconic lead singer, the remaining touring Queen members, lead guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, have forged a superb synergy with frontman Adam Lambert.
The American Idol runner-up wasn’t even at school the final time Freddie led the band on stage at the Knebworth Festival in 1986, but his towering voice and natural theatrics are a perfect match.
Brian May’s riff-driven Now I’m Here, with definitive sweet harmonies, from the third album Sheer Heart Attack (1974) gave Lambert a perfect launch pad.
Next came their first big single Seven Seas of Rhye, which I first heard as a teenager over the tannoy at a UK football match in 1974.
Written by Freddie, lyrically it makes no more sense than it did then but it sounded like nothing else and Queen maintained that magic and mystery through 15 albums and 74 singles including the groundbreaking opus, Bohemian Rhapsody played here as the apt climax, before several encores.
Adelaide audiences have a reputation for being a little subdued but the Oval was really rocking after I Want It All.
Other classics on a hefty 33-song set, that included tributes to Elvis Presley (Heartbreak Hotel) and Led Zeppelin (Whole Lotta Love), with a stirring Lambert vocal, included Under Pressure, Radio Ga Ga, Somebody To Love, and The Show Must Go On, which it did for around 150 minutes.
Then there were the encores We Are The Champions and We Will Rock You, both synonymous as sporting anthems and most appropriate to be played in the state’s premier sporting arena.
This was a Killer Queen performance and hard to believe there were two septuagenarians on stage.
Taylor played a rousing drum solo and May a monster guitar solo set to Dvorak’s New World Symphony and Holst’s The Planets Suite, which was slightly mystifying but highly entertaining.
Freddie dropped by regularly on screen, singing a haunting duo with May, playing an acoustic guitar, on Love Of My Life and leading off the encores with a chorus of his signature “Ay-Oh”.
What is most evident is the scope and depth of Queen’s collective songwriting talents with strong contributions to their biggest hits from all members, including bassist John Deacon who hasn’t toured since 1997.
The Rhapsody stage and light show has been meticulously and imaginatively conceived with graphic designs based around the 1975 album Night At The Opera.
At least half a dozen screens enhanced the performance showing videos or close ups of the talent. The cameras got so close even those at the back of the Bradman Stand could see Brian May’s silver sixpence plectrum glinting in his fingers.
Despite the pyrotechnics and big stadium production at times there was a tender intimacy including when Taylor, May and Lambert set up as a trio down stage for Crazy Little Thing Called Love.
It is a tribute to their lofty place in the pantheon of rock gods, that Queen’s 21-minute six song set at the Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium is rated the greatest ever live rock show.
That was an incredible 35 years ago but the generosity and virtuosity of that performance was still in evidence in Adelaide.
Before they became Queen, the band was called Smile and the smiles on the faces of a raucous and enraptured Adelaide crowd suggested they didn’t need a name change.
If this was the band’s last hurrah in SA it was truly a night to remember.