Queen

I don’t know where to start or how to describe it but I have to because otherwise I won’t! And that wouldn’t make any sense at all.

1986 – The Magic tour. We have the CD and video of the Wembley show and listened/watched it pretending we were there. If you’d asked us when we’d go to if we could travel in time, our response was always the start of the 1970s, to catch the entire glorious career of Queen before it all “ended” in 1991.

2005 – Queen with Paul Rodgers hit Hyde Park. And we were there. The dream came true, we got to see Queen in concert, and it was Fan. Tas. Tic.

We were about 4 feet behind the barrier separating the main area from the gold circle. A fair view, we could parts of the stage most of the time. The warm up was Peter Kay and Razorlight. Good, but to be honest I was most definately here to see Queen and they were adding to the delay. Then at last, Queen came on with Paul Rodgers. *swoon* They began with Tie Your Mother Down. Paul Rodgers was a very very pleasant surprise – amazing stage presence and he didn’t do the all so common new-vocalist thing of turning Queen into backing musicians or distorting the songs beyond recognition. He fitted perfectly, buggered off for about 50% of the time to let Queen sing their own songs, and he sung his own famous songs which were brilliant – I didn’t realise he did songs like All Right Now etc.

Since the show was rescheduled from the previous week due to the events of last Thursday there was a fantastic t-shirt available (the date had “The Show Must Go On” written over it). Plus We Are The Champions was dedicated to the emergency services for their work last Thursday, and rightly so. As Roger said; “Nice to see London’s still running”.

There were of course the obligatory dredges of society like the chavs who pushed in front of us and the disturbing woman with extensive underarm hair and body odour. Luckily though fate adored us by making the woman move away before Radio GaGa and by making the chavs spontaneously leave, leaving us with a large gap to flood into with our new fellow chav-hater friends. They cheered Ding as she got to move close enough to see the stage. A tall but very nice bloke called the BFG had tried to look after her all evening by swapping with the little shortarse 😉 whenever she couldn’t see. He also took some good pics we are hoping to get copies of. 212 in fact…. *is in shock* … … gah… Or “holy goats in hell” as AnM just exclaimed… That bloke is rather fantastic. I’m gonna be up for a while downloading methinks.

Highlights of the evening were the entire 85,000 strong crowd doing the \o/ /o\ \o/ thing in Radio GaGa and We Will Rock You, the /o/ \o\ /o/ thing for We Are The Champions, and the fantastic lights of A Kind Of Magic, and the amazing guitar solo of Last Horizon by Brian where he stood in front of a screen showing the top of Buckingham Palace as he did in the Jubilee which then became an amazing starscape of colours and glitter balls – I can’t do it justice in this description.

There was an incredible feeling of almost religous belonging – everyone there knew every word to the choruses, and the true diehards knew every word to every bit of every song. The fantastic people behind us punctuated the show by echoing our thoughts with exclamations of “Oh this is going to be fantastic” and “No one can do it quite like Queen – fantastic”. I got the sense that everyone around us were looking around and seeing their thoughts reflected in others’ faces, like people who have been following a cause but thought they were all alone, and they suddenly find out they aren’t alone and that the cause is just as big as it’s ever been even though they haven’t had anywhere to congregate in 19 years. The look of almost overwhelming awe on fellow fans faces was just incredible.

Roger, Roger, Roger, you are the most gorgeous man in the world, and we absolutely adore you. Your voice is soooo fantastic. No beard and short hair is most definately the best look – anything else would have been disappointing. Brian – so unbelievely nice. Nice, nice, nice. And my god, that man (and his long legs) totally rule the stage. And the I saw Brian standing the way Brian stands with my own eyes! And I saw Roger do the twiddle drumstick thing he does WITH my OWN EYES! Eyes, air, Queen! No TV! *swoons* Never ever ever seen them directly before. Eyes, air, Queen….

Memory moments:
Roger going to introduce the two guitarists and then jumping as they snuck up behind him.
In the middle of a reasonably somber song, Brian: “Hi Paul” conversationally. Paul “Hi Brian” likewise conversationally.
Oh my good golly gosh, Roger singing I’m In Love With My Car and These Are The Days Of Our Lives *swoons again*
Group photos with our new friends.
Everyone jumping in time to BoRhap
Hehe, people shouting “We want Bwian!” and “Welease Woger!” Monty Pythonesk just before Queen came out *cackles*
Seeing Freddie on the screens and suddenly feeling like we were back in 1986 and Freddie was there.

No doubt more memories to follow.

Set list, pinced off Penny (with permission ;))
01. Intro: It’s A Beautiful Day Ross Robertson / DJ Koma 2005 techno mix [tape]
02. Intro: Lose Yourself [tape – Eminem Brian guitar]
03. Reachin’ Out (Paul on vocals)
04. Tie Your Mother Down (Paul on vocals) love love love that they still start with this
05. I Want To Break Free (Paul on vocals) I don’t, I want to stay here for ever!
06. Fat Bottomed Girls (Paul on vocals)
07. Wishing Well (Paul on vocals)
08. Another One Bites The Dust (Paul on vocals) The world’s best ever baseline – courtesy of John Deacon
09. Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Paul on vocals + guitar) Think about Crystal and the hands! tehe!
10. Say It’s Not True (Roger on vocals) Meep!
11. ’39 (Brian on vocals & guitar) Been singing this ever since
12. Love Of My Life (Brian on vocals & guitar) *heart strings tugged*
13.Imagine (Brian solo vocals and guitar 1st verse, roger 2nd, Paul and full band backing 3rd and endo)
14. Hammer To Fall slow/fast (Brian and Paul on vocals) That rocked, truly rocked.
15. Feel Like Makin’ Love (Paul on vocals)
16. Let There Be Drums *swoons*
17. I’m In Love With My Car (Roger on vocals and drums) *swoons again*
18. Guitar solo (Brian – obviously)
19. Last Horizon (Brian) My god, the most amazing display ever…. *speechless*
20. These Are The Days Of Our Lives (Roger on vocals) *swoons yet again* what a voice. what. a. voice.
21. Radio Ga Ga (Roger and Paul on vocals) THE PEOPLE RULE!
22. Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love (Paul on vocals)
23. A Kind Of Magic (Paul on vocals) The lights! The colours! Rainbow display!
24. I Want It All (Paul on vocals) *loses ability to form coherent sentences* drum solo! Good!
25. Bohemian Rhapsody (Freddie and Paul on vocals) *sob* Freddie on the screen, looked for him on stage too…
26. The Show Must Go On (Paul on vocals) Rock on!
27. All Right Now (Paul on vocals) Oo I like this song. Didn’t know PR did it.
28. We Will Rock You (Paul on vocals) PEOPLE UNITED AGAIN!
29. We Are The Champions (Paul on vocals) Heartwrenchingly fantastic!
30. God Save The Queen Everyone loves an excuse for patriotism

Dreams do come true.