Post by sue on Aug 9, 2008 12:21:34 GMT
We went to see Magic - A Kind of Queen last night and were rather disappointed.
They announced when they came on that they are not a look-alike act (we had noticed), but this would not have mattered if they had sounded right.
The musicians were mostly good, if a bit lacking in sparkle, and the lead guitarist & keyboard player were very good. They were all good on the harmonies too.
The main problem is the lead vocalist who doesn't sound like Freddie or have anywhere near his range. He had real trouble with alot of the high notes (ones that I suspect were only around halfway up Freddie's range).
Neither of us are Queen obsessives who would criticise them for putting one or two notes out of place, by the way.
Two of my favourites are "We Will Rock You" and "Hammer to Fall"; both real rockers which I thought would have been good to finish on & go out with a bang, but instead they welded them together into a short medley and started with it, as if they knew they had to play them & wanted to get it over with.
They also do ELO shows and gave us a taster with "Mr. Blue Sky", but unfortunately while the band were very good on this the singer can't do Jeff Lynne's falsettos either!
A bit more volume wouldn't have hurt either, (we are probably getting a bit deaf in our old age) but I think it was kept down because there were alot of children in the audience, which we hadn't expected.
I think this is the key to the problem; this is Queen re-packaged as family entertainment!
They announced when they came on that they are not a look-alike act (we had noticed), but this would not have mattered if they had sounded right.
The musicians were mostly good, if a bit lacking in sparkle, and the lead guitarist & keyboard player were very good. They were all good on the harmonies too.
The main problem is the lead vocalist who doesn't sound like Freddie or have anywhere near his range. He had real trouble with alot of the high notes (ones that I suspect were only around halfway up Freddie's range).
Neither of us are Queen obsessives who would criticise them for putting one or two notes out of place, by the way.
Two of my favourites are "We Will Rock You" and "Hammer to Fall"; both real rockers which I thought would have been good to finish on & go out with a bang, but instead they welded them together into a short medley and started with it, as if they knew they had to play them & wanted to get it over with.
They also do ELO shows and gave us a taster with "Mr. Blue Sky", but unfortunately while the band were very good on this the singer can't do Jeff Lynne's falsettos either!
A bit more volume wouldn't have hurt either, (we are probably getting a bit deaf in our old age) but I think it was kept down because there were alot of children in the audience, which we hadn't expected.
I think this is the key to the problem; this is Queen re-packaged as family entertainment!