YOU CALL THAT MUSIC? - Queen+Paul Rodgers "Return Of The Champions" DVD Review
By Art Shimko
schlocknhyperbole@verizon.net
SchlockNHyperbole.BlogSpot.com
-- Greeting and salutations fellow Country Corner residents, hope you are all doing well. My name is Art Shimko of The Schlock N' Hyperbole Wrestling Bonanza After-Party blog and Casey here was kind enough to give me a spot at the OCC. Now why would I want to devote even more hours to rambling online? Well I enjoy writing about music and at the SNH blog the music portion shares the spotlight with pro wrestling and mixed martial arts coverage so I thought I'd give Casey a hand with the music portion here as well as have fun devoting blogs solely to music. Now I won't be repeating anything here that would be on SNH, I want to provide Casey and the OCC readers with original content and do something different then what's on my blog.
So for the inaugural edition of "YOU CALL THAT MUSIC?" I decided to review a concert DVD by the surviving members of one of rock's most grandiose outfits, Queen. Last year surviving members guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor decided to team up with Paul Rodgers, the voice of Bad Company, all talented artists in their own right. But as far as getting together and billing themselves as "Queen" or rather "Queen+Paul Rodgers", well that didn't jive too well with me. I won't bore you guys with a rant as I already expressed my thoughts in an early SNH post regarding that matter and if I wasn't given a free copy of this DVD I wouldn't have ever seen it because these clowns aren't going to receive my hard-earned money. All I will say is that Queen died the same day its vocalist, the late great Freddie Mercury passed away on November 24, 1991. So now I have the opportunity (for lack of a better term) to witness how these guys pull it off, also want to mention that even though the setlist is mostly Queen material there are a few Bad Company tracks thrown in the mix so that should make things interesting to say the least.
-- QUEEN + PAUL RODGERS
"RETURN OF THE CHAMPIONS"
RECORDED LIVE AT HALLAM FM ARENA, SHEFFIELD 5/9/05
-- The DVD kicks off with a cover of Rock Therapy's "Reaching Out". Paul Rodgers is a great singer, lots of emotion, this segues into a kickin' version of "Tie Your Mother Down". So far so good if I so say myself, May's cranking out loud riffs and there are a million people in this stadium. Paul Rodgers does make for a great frontman, not as charismatic as Freddie but no one can even try to emulate that, he does the best he can. May can still play like a motherfucker and more than hold his own to any modern-day guitarist out there.
The next track is "I Want To Break Free", now a friend told me that to him, this version of Queen sounded like Bad Company doing Queen covers. This version demonstrates that even with Rodgers doing a decent job singing these songs, some Queen tracks had that Mercury signature with his unique high voice, Rodgers was able to sound great with heavy songs like "Tie Your Mother Down" but along the way there are songs that will sound way different with his voice. Again a decent effort for what it's worth.
Here we go with another classic by the name of "Fat Bottomed Girls", what's interesting is that Brian May seems to be kicking in the distortion on his guitar riffs pretty heavy which is complementing Paul Rodgers' voice really well. Mercury's voice worked well with May's heavy riffs also but I think that May stepped it up a bit and goes well with Rodgers' voice.
Next is a song titled "Wishing Well" by Rodgers' pre-Bad Company band, the excellent blues-rock band Free. The Queen guys and the back-up group here do a great rendition of this song, I was bitching earlier about Queen doing Bad Company tracks in their sets these days but after hearing this I'm all for hearing Rodgers sing songs he's more familiar with as it makes more sense to hear him doing his old songs as it breaks things up.
Next up is "Another One Bites The Dust", I'm so used to hearing Freddie sing this one that I'm really curious how this one goes. It's weird, not necessarily bad, but I'm used to Freddie singing this one but you can't have your cake and eat it too I suppose. I was going to say the same thing for the next track "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" as I loved Freddie doing the doo-wop kind-of gimmick but Rodgers does a good job singing this one.
Drummer Roger Taylor and two members of the back-up band make their way to the end of the extended stage ramp towards the audience to do a song he wrote for Nelson Mandela titled "Say It's Not True". The song is okay, I personally was never a fan of Taylor's voice but the song has a nice message.
Brian May is now onstage alone to perform his wonderful little ditty "'39" from Queen's "A Night At The Opera", also May performs a beautiful acoustic version of "Love Of My Life" from the same album the audience does a cool job singing along as well. May continues his solo segment onstage with "Hammer To Fall" from "The Works" album, the rest of the band soon chime in for a full performance.
We now get our first Bad Company song of the evening with "Feel Like Making Love", one of BC's most well known songs. I'd love to hear these guys do "Seagull" or "Shooting Star" but this track is decent.
Next up is a drum solo/instrumental followed by "I'm In Love With My Car", another Taylor-penned track that he sings as well, good for what it's worth. Now it's May's turn to shred out a guitar solo, the guy is beyond talented and I always felt he was a bit overshadowed by Freddie but he deserves a lot of credit for his contribution to the vast library of guitar tones and riffs which has made him unique for 30 years. May continues his excellent guitar work with the track "Last Horizon" from his album "Back To The Light" which features an inspirational vibe accompanied by May's trademark riffs.
Drummer Roger Taylor comes out to sing "These Are The Days Of Our Lives", another Queen classic but again not into his voice but it's cool to hear this one live in 2005. There's old footage of Queen home movies on the projection screen behind the band, some pretty cool vintage stuff.
Now we have "Radio Ga Ga", not a favorite of mine and Taylor sings this one.
We come back to another Bad Company track titled "Can't Get Enough", decent classic-rock staple but boy have I heard this one like a million times.
The group heads back to Queen-land with "A Kind Of Magic", actually not bad as it gets a little heavier from the original. Same goes for the follow-up track "I Want It All" but I'm a bit used to Freddie singing this one.
Okay, here's the holy grail, "Bohemian Rhapsody", if you remember Elton John and Axl Rose "singing" this one at the Mercury tribute concert in the early 90's it was an abomination to say the least. This time Queen was smart and they're playing old footage on a screen of Freddie singing the song with Rodgers singing the heavy part at the end which I'm perfectly fine with.
Wow, the next song is my favorite modern Queen song, "The Show Must Go On" from their final album "Innuendo". Rodgers does a great job on this track, the song itself is quite an emotional one.
Paul Rodgers gets to bang out one more of his songs with the old Free song "All Right Now". AM radio goodness.
The concert ends with the Queen staple "We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions", again one of those tracks I'm used to hearing Freddie Mercury sing. Again Rodgers does a great job and gets the crowd really pumped on these versions so it's not all that bad.
There's a bonus track from Hyde Park in London of the band singing John Lennon's "Imagine". They do a nice job and you can't go wrong with such a positive message.
THE FINAL VERDICT: Well I really thought I was going to hate this DVD but I put aside my principles and ended up enjoying the songs and the band did a wonderful job with the new renditions. I was picky at times but for the most part these guys delivered and the audience ate it up so the band cannot be faulted for a subpar performance.
Also I've read that these guys plan on recording new material and that's fine and all but I wish it wouldn't be under the "Queen" moniker yet at the same time I am not naive and understand that they will sell more records with that brand name. If they use another name for the group people will just think, "yeah it's those dudes from Queen and the Bad Company singer," and naming the band something like "Rodgers, May and Taylor" can come off cheesy, it's a no-win situation really. But as far as these musicians continuing to produce music I'm all for that because they're way too talented not to plus May and Taylor were a part of those Queen songs so performing in concert isn't a crime I suppose but at least they'll release new music.
schlocknhyperbole@verizon.net
SchlockNHyperbole.BlogSpot.com
-- Greeting and salutations fellow Country Corner residents, hope you are all doing well. My name is Art Shimko of The Schlock N' Hyperbole Wrestling Bonanza After-Party blog and Casey here was kind enough to give me a spot at the OCC. Now why would I want to devote even more hours to rambling online? Well I enjoy writing about music and at the SNH blog the music portion shares the spotlight with pro wrestling and mixed martial arts coverage so I thought I'd give Casey a hand with the music portion here as well as have fun devoting blogs solely to music. Now I won't be repeating anything here that would be on SNH, I want to provide Casey and the OCC readers with original content and do something different then what's on my blog.
So for the inaugural edition of "YOU CALL THAT MUSIC?" I decided to review a concert DVD by the surviving members of one of rock's most grandiose outfits, Queen. Last year surviving members guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor decided to team up with Paul Rodgers, the voice of Bad Company, all talented artists in their own right. But as far as getting together and billing themselves as "Queen" or rather "Queen+Paul Rodgers", well that didn't jive too well with me. I won't bore you guys with a rant as I already expressed my thoughts in an early SNH post regarding that matter and if I wasn't given a free copy of this DVD I wouldn't have ever seen it because these clowns aren't going to receive my hard-earned money. All I will say is that Queen died the same day its vocalist, the late great Freddie Mercury passed away on November 24, 1991. So now I have the opportunity (for lack of a better term) to witness how these guys pull it off, also want to mention that even though the setlist is mostly Queen material there are a few Bad Company tracks thrown in the mix so that should make things interesting to say the least.
-- QUEEN + PAUL RODGERS
"RETURN OF THE CHAMPIONS"
RECORDED LIVE AT HALLAM FM ARENA, SHEFFIELD 5/9/05
-- The DVD kicks off with a cover of Rock Therapy's "Reaching Out". Paul Rodgers is a great singer, lots of emotion, this segues into a kickin' version of "Tie Your Mother Down". So far so good if I so say myself, May's cranking out loud riffs and there are a million people in this stadium. Paul Rodgers does make for a great frontman, not as charismatic as Freddie but no one can even try to emulate that, he does the best he can. May can still play like a motherfucker and more than hold his own to any modern-day guitarist out there.
The next track is "I Want To Break Free", now a friend told me that to him, this version of Queen sounded like Bad Company doing Queen covers. This version demonstrates that even with Rodgers doing a decent job singing these songs, some Queen tracks had that Mercury signature with his unique high voice, Rodgers was able to sound great with heavy songs like "Tie Your Mother Down" but along the way there are songs that will sound way different with his voice. Again a decent effort for what it's worth.
Here we go with another classic by the name of "Fat Bottomed Girls", what's interesting is that Brian May seems to be kicking in the distortion on his guitar riffs pretty heavy which is complementing Paul Rodgers' voice really well. Mercury's voice worked well with May's heavy riffs also but I think that May stepped it up a bit and goes well with Rodgers' voice.
Next is a song titled "Wishing Well" by Rodgers' pre-Bad Company band, the excellent blues-rock band Free. The Queen guys and the back-up group here do a great rendition of this song, I was bitching earlier about Queen doing Bad Company tracks in their sets these days but after hearing this I'm all for hearing Rodgers sing songs he's more familiar with as it makes more sense to hear him doing his old songs as it breaks things up.
Next up is "Another One Bites The Dust", I'm so used to hearing Freddie sing this one that I'm really curious how this one goes. It's weird, not necessarily bad, but I'm used to Freddie singing this one but you can't have your cake and eat it too I suppose. I was going to say the same thing for the next track "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" as I loved Freddie doing the doo-wop kind-of gimmick but Rodgers does a good job singing this one.
Drummer Roger Taylor and two members of the back-up band make their way to the end of the extended stage ramp towards the audience to do a song he wrote for Nelson Mandela titled "Say It's Not True". The song is okay, I personally was never a fan of Taylor's voice but the song has a nice message.
Brian May is now onstage alone to perform his wonderful little ditty "'39" from Queen's "A Night At The Opera", also May performs a beautiful acoustic version of "Love Of My Life" from the same album the audience does a cool job singing along as well. May continues his solo segment onstage with "Hammer To Fall" from "The Works" album, the rest of the band soon chime in for a full performance.
We now get our first Bad Company song of the evening with "Feel Like Making Love", one of BC's most well known songs. I'd love to hear these guys do "Seagull" or "Shooting Star" but this track is decent.
Next up is a drum solo/instrumental followed by "I'm In Love With My Car", another Taylor-penned track that he sings as well, good for what it's worth. Now it's May's turn to shred out a guitar solo, the guy is beyond talented and I always felt he was a bit overshadowed by Freddie but he deserves a lot of credit for his contribution to the vast library of guitar tones and riffs which has made him unique for 30 years. May continues his excellent guitar work with the track "Last Horizon" from his album "Back To The Light" which features an inspirational vibe accompanied by May's trademark riffs.
Drummer Roger Taylor comes out to sing "These Are The Days Of Our Lives", another Queen classic but again not into his voice but it's cool to hear this one live in 2005. There's old footage of Queen home movies on the projection screen behind the band, some pretty cool vintage stuff.
Now we have "Radio Ga Ga", not a favorite of mine and Taylor sings this one.
We come back to another Bad Company track titled "Can't Get Enough", decent classic-rock staple but boy have I heard this one like a million times.
The group heads back to Queen-land with "A Kind Of Magic", actually not bad as it gets a little heavier from the original. Same goes for the follow-up track "I Want It All" but I'm a bit used to Freddie singing this one.
Okay, here's the holy grail, "Bohemian Rhapsody", if you remember Elton John and Axl Rose "singing" this one at the Mercury tribute concert in the early 90's it was an abomination to say the least. This time Queen was smart and they're playing old footage on a screen of Freddie singing the song with Rodgers singing the heavy part at the end which I'm perfectly fine with.
Wow, the next song is my favorite modern Queen song, "The Show Must Go On" from their final album "Innuendo". Rodgers does a great job on this track, the song itself is quite an emotional one.
Paul Rodgers gets to bang out one more of his songs with the old Free song "All Right Now". AM radio goodness.
The concert ends with the Queen staple "We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions", again one of those tracks I'm used to hearing Freddie Mercury sing. Again Rodgers does a great job and gets the crowd really pumped on these versions so it's not all that bad.
There's a bonus track from Hyde Park in London of the band singing John Lennon's "Imagine". They do a nice job and you can't go wrong with such a positive message.
THE FINAL VERDICT: Well I really thought I was going to hate this DVD but I put aside my principles and ended up enjoying the songs and the band did a wonderful job with the new renditions. I was picky at times but for the most part these guys delivered and the audience ate it up so the band cannot be faulted for a subpar performance.
Also I've read that these guys plan on recording new material and that's fine and all but I wish it wouldn't be under the "Queen" moniker yet at the same time I am not naive and understand that they will sell more records with that brand name. If they use another name for the group people will just think, "yeah it's those dudes from Queen and the Bad Company singer," and naming the band something like "Rodgers, May and Taylor" can come off cheesy, it's a no-win situation really. But as far as these musicians continuing to produce music I'm all for that because they're way too talented not to plus May and Taylor were a part of those Queen songs so performing in concert isn't a crime I suppose but at least they'll release new music.
Labels: Art Shimko, Music, You Call that Music
posted by Art Shimko at 9/19/2006 03:21:00 AM
2 Comments:
This is why you write music reviews and I don't. This was so muc more awesome than I could've ever written.
My review of songs would be something like, it was ok or it sucked. This does not a good review make, but you bring the knowledge.
I appreciate that Casey, glad you enjoyed it. I was afraid the review would be too long but the DVD itself is over 2 hours long so I feel it worked out.
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