Its not easy being Queen MWP Pavilion 7/20/2014

Once upon a time… there was a band that had to try to please everyone… did they please anybody?

First of all, you have to understand that I LOVE THIS BAND. In the way only a 15-16 year old girl can when she finds a band that is the” love of their life” and grew up playing all their early albums non-stop, till they were worn to nothing and we had to buy new copies. They literally changed my life because the one and only reason my best friend Nina and I started trying to get backstage at every single gig that came to the Capitol Centre was to be ready for Queen to get there. So we would know just how to meet our idols. It was all just practice for the big event. At first, at least. I had no way of knowing then that going backstage and becoming a part of that world  was going to be my life for the next 7 years or so and change me whole perception of who I was and what I could be. No more shy awkward little junior high school punching bag. No more was I the girl that the ugliest boy in school  became offended because a rumor started we were dating.  No more was I the girl the entire neighborhood picked on and despised. Once I found out that guys like Roger Daltry thought I was just fine. A lot of women had their self- esteem destroyed by what went on backstage during those years but I took no crap from no one and I actually came out of it feeling like a person of value with something to offer. So if it had not been for Queen who knows who I would have turned out to be? Probably what I started as before they came along, a depressed, abused, powerless, vulnerable, naive worthless kid who would have latched on to the first  bully that paid her any attention at all and ended like a lifetime movie of the week  .  So to say they were important to me is  the understatement of the century.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

We saw them for the first time at Cole Field House at George Washington University. Fri Feb 4th 1977.  Just a college gig, with Thin Lizzy opening. It was our very first rock concert and just before they become wildly popular in the states  . We knew all about them already, of course, but that’s because we had just discovered rock and roll and loved the English bands, especially the glam bands. We first started watching rock and roll on TV when I discovered the Kinks and we took great pride in owning every fan magazine with our favorite Brit bands and only shopping in the import record stores, but nothing had prepared us for THE REAL THING! Freddie, Roger, Brian, and John in their full glory at the height of their creativity scratching and clawing their way to be nothing less than biggest band in the world. And even though I spent quite a bit of it making out with Scott  during the concert, I kept my eyes open every minute of the show and the make out session (what? You never heard of multitasking? lol) And it was incredible.

Our next concert would be Led Zeppelin at the Cap Centre and that was it! From that moment onward we would hitchhike around the beltway if necessary, across 6 lanes of traffic to get to every big gig by noon to study how this whole” meeting the band” thing was done. The first time Queen came back to the Capitol Centre  it was the same year Tue 29th Nov – 1977  The Day of the Races tour was continuing and growing to stadium size and stating to set records. Of course we only caught a glimpse of them in their limos as they drove past us into the backstage area but by then we had learned a thing or two so we left the gig early and were waiting in the car when their limos rushed out and we followed them all the way into Downtown DC (giggling and screaming) although they did their best to lose us , until they got to some Japanese restaurant and we refused to budge from out front until they came out again so we could follow them to the hotel. Luckily for us Queen turned out to be creatures of habit and once we knew where they were staying  we could head straight for the hotel every time and if we were lucky beat them there. So we always got to see them pass through the lobby. Nina isn’t in this picture. i think she must have been holding the camera. It took quite a while for them to come back because now they were  massive all over the world.

But then it was announced!  They were coming back! 6th Nov 1978 to the  Capitol Centre~ on MY 18th birthday!

We knew where they were staying, we had a ride and crazily enough we got backstage passes!  Crystal ( Chris Taylor , Rogers drum tech and MUCH MORE) loved my black and white striped leotard, black mini skater skirt and black and white striped  over the knee leg warmers  so he said he” couldn’t leave me outside in that fabulous outfit” and gave us all passes  get in to the outer edges of the backstage! Everything couldn’t have been more perfect. It felt like the luckiest  night of my life. Right up until this moron friend of ours who had promised to chauffeur us around all night told about three hundred little girls all wearing I love Roger Taylor buttons (while we were indoors backstage and he had to sit in the parking lot waiting) the one thing we knew that nobody else did. What hotel they were staying at. Because we had passes we didn’t slip out of the show early, hoping to see the band while they were inside the arena, where no one else could get at them, now the secret was out and was spreading like wildfire but  they were just too well guarded for that. I got a body-guard to take a few pics of Freddie we had taken that we were especially proud of into the dressing room and he came out with two words from her highness. “Not bad” A bit rude, but what the hell we would take it. By the time we got to the hotel the crowd of girls who had been outside the back door while our ride John was showing off and running  off at his big mouth had all beaten us there and had packed the lobby of the hotel full to bursting. I started to walk inside but when I saw the throng I knew any chance of a moment or two just to connect with Roger, or even more, hopefully,  was now impossible so as the band entered and he was surrounded I just turned my back and dejectedly started to walk away .

All he sudden I hear this shouting above all the din of dozens of squealing girls surrounding their idol.

In a very familiar voice ” ROGER!” screamed Nina ” ROGER TAYLOR! TURN AROUND RIGHT NOW AND LOOK AT ME! I SAID  NOW!”  Well by now the entire hotel was staring, mouths gaping open at Nina- she pointed her finger at my departing back.  I had yet to have the courage to turn around and she said (Once again extremely disapprovingly at the gob smacked Mr Taylor and company)

” MY BEST FRIEND SHERRY LOVES YOU MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD AND ITS HER BIRTHDAY AND YOU ARE GOING TO TALK TO HER! The or else was a given.

By now even I had to turn around, there was no other option,  just to see every eye in the place gawking at me.  Roger said graciously “Why of course. Come here Sherry.” wiggling a finger at me like  dangling tuna at a frightened kitten.   An aisle started to open like the parting of the red sea in a direct line between Roger and I and spread to about 12 foot wide, my hopes of having a private moment when our eyes met and we fell madly in love were hopelessly dashed by this point and this is the last place in the world I want to be now. I began slowly walking towards him totally mortified, eyes down cast. the room was waiting to see what would happen when I got there, like an obedient little peasant girl . I’m standing now, right in front of him, eyes still downcast and he actually puts his hands on his knees and bends over to look me in the face, and says in the  voice a clown says to a timid three year old at a loud birthday celebration surprise… “So it’s your birthday is it? And us how old is it you are then today? (the words little girl never spoken, but they might as well have been, they hung so heavily in the air) ” Eighteen” I mumbled, absolutely humiliated, terrified he was going to pat me on the head before this whole ordeal was over at long last. “Well, happy birthday to you!” and he stuck his hand out with his elbow bent like you would to a kindergartner at graduation. I took it, shook it and ran for my life. Once again he crowd of girls started squealing and giggling as they closed back in on him while he signed autographs but by then I was halfway to the car. I will never be able to thank her enough though, and we laughed hysterically the whole ride home!

Sat 23rd Aug 1980 – USA, Baltimore, Civic Center was their next show. I had a ticket and a ride arranged but from a friend who was a pathological liar. So when he time had come for her to pick me  after an hour or two, i knew she wasn’t coming and ha never intended to and  I wasn’t surprised at all it had happened. And I was still a bit wobbly from the last show. But that was the last time I ever spoke to her. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Should have been done long ago. two long years pass before they come into town again.

Sun 25th July 1982 – USA, Washington DC, Capital Centre Hot Space Tour –

By then we were experts at getting backstage at everyone but we had never been able to get a crack at getting any closer to Queen, they were just too tightly secured, too well guarded. and by we i mean me and my new partner in the rock and roll game, the other Shari, 50 percent of the now ” The Infamous Sherry and Shari”

” Able to leap restraining barriers in one mighty stiletto’ed hop, to get to where we had no business being with a single bound. We were only happy if we got inside every single show that came into town free. We approached it single-minded, and  as a science. We made friends with every crew we could, every gig, every tour, and found out when and with what band they would come back to town. We would get the names of their friends on other tours to watch out for, and to ask for personally. We flirted unmercifully with every person working every door, and every goon operating security at every local event. We made friends of every union stagehand, chatted up every truck driver, T-shirt shirt man, all the sound-men, and the entire lighting team. We sweet-talked every gaffer, rigger, and roadie in sight and cozy-ed up to every regular hotel employee at all the hotels the bands were always booked into. We flattered and fussed over every limo driver for a hundred miles around. We made sure we knew everyone and made sure we were known and appreciated by every promoter as well behaved and worth having around, not sleazy, low-class troublemakers. To find out where the best parties were going to be, we did detective and surveillance work that would have made Phillip Marlowe proud. We learned to contact the band’s A & R person at the label in New York or L.A. in advance to see if we could sweet-talk our way onto “The List.” Eventually, somehow we’d manage to schmooze, sneak, or scheme our way in every single time. They all soon learned there was never any hope of us doing sexual favors for passes for any show, like some of those girls at the back door, but you could always count on us to show up at 10 am, bringing fresh baked cookies or a homemade meatloaf for lunch, in order to keep the bored, exhausted boys who lived on the bus company and entertained on a long, hard day and night out here in the middle of suburban nowhere somewhere in Maryland, or Virginia or Washington D.C or Baltimore. Happy to get out a needle and thread and put a button back on their favorite shirt, or run an errand they hadn’t gotten around to, or spend the afternoon before the gig at the hotel doing their laundry. Even better, we invited all our available girlfriends to come down to the gig at show time if they were willing to give them passes too.  Most of all, we truly cared just as much or more about our friendships with the roadies as we did about meeting the bands. That was what made all the difference, made us special. We had a genuine desire to get to know them because they were much more interesting than the local boys our age could ever be, and we really wanted them to have a nice time while they came to town. It was always appreciated when someone would let us in free or give us a pass, and we made sure they knew it and treated them decently so we got the same appreciation, treatment and respect back. Now, I’m not trying to say we didn’t partake and participate in all sorts of notorious backstage naughty-girl behavior; our shenanigans were just about as well- known as our courtesy and our kindness. After all, I did say we were fairies, not angels. But we had a certain set of morals and high standards and ethics when it came to our behavior and reputations, and a limit to how much bullshit we were willing to tolerate. We grew to be known as people you should be kind to, look out for, and take care of when you came to our town.”  from  Even Rock and Roll has Fairy Tales: The Flight of the Sherry Fairy by Sherry Carroll https://www.amazon.com/Even-Rock-Roll-Fairy-Tales/dp/1502490471

So you can imagine our shock when fairly early and easily we scored VIP passes and got into the show! And before it’s over we had the golden ticket. We were invited upstairs to party inside the Hotel where the band was staying! Unfortunately when we got to the party it was only the crew. And even though we made sure to get names and make friends with the people certain to be able to get us passes with no problem, forever after, those the very closest to the band, little did we know, even if they might have had an Inkling, there would be no more next times in Dc. Soon Freddie was gone. And Queen, as we knew them could never tour again.

Moving ahead to  September 03, 2006    Queen was coming to the convention center with Paul Rogers. By then I wasn’t going to concerts at all anymore but my kid brother who I had turned into an even bigger Queen fan than I ever was, if that were possible, and had never seen them and  I thought should have a chance so I bought him two tickets . At the last minute he was unable to go, so rather begrudgingly, just to keep them from going to waste my husband and I went. And it was all right, I was in the audience just listening , not even feeling it, not even being aware or shutting down any emotions over this being a “ Queen” gig and Freddie being gone . Until, I don’t know, something happened when Roger started to sing Radio Ga Ga. A tune I had never particularly cared for in the past because it was passed the time when Queen music had been able to affect me  because it had changed so much. And I really listened to it. And it really sunk I was here, with Roger and Brian and I began to weep and just cried  like baby the entire rest of the show.

 

 

When Queen announced that they were going to come out of retirement  and  tour this summer as Queen with Adam Lambert I wasn’t as thrilled as you might have expected. I figured it would be some big stadium gig where I would pay hundreds of dollars to see them look like ants and after all the other, so much better experiences, it could only be a bitter end to a tragic tale. I had my crazy little memories; they were good enough for me. I could watch them on you tube in their prime doing anything I wanted to see. I didn’t need to be one of 200,000 people in the audience of a football stadium.

But something crazy happened on a Wednesday night in March. I got an email with advance ticket sale password to get Queen tickets 24 hours before the general public  at MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILION.  A tiny little nowhere venue, a place where I could be closer to, or have better seats then I ever had in my life to see Roger and Brian one more time in my lifetime, or theirs. If I could be one of the first ones on line to purchase online at 9 am in the morning the day the pre-sale began.  And a feeling stated to wash over me. One I had not had about a concert in 20 years. It kept building and building until it could not be ignored.

I didn’t know if I was going to be able to do it, but dammit I was going to give it all I got to try.

I called my kid brother to see if he is keen. I knew one person could get at least six tickets if they got though and he was all  excited for it. The night before I started getting so nervous and excited I knew there was no way I was going to be able to sleep. I logged on the ticket site just to see if by some fluke the pass word would work early and almost had a sheer heart attack myself. The tickets down in front were 295.00 dollars each. Well, I’m sorry but I don’t even have a proper job , I’m  a writer, a starving artiste,  and the only way I could, or would spring for three hundred dollar tickets to see anybody Roger Taylor would have to be playing the drums from my lap.

And I could see AmEx members had an even better pre-sale deal where their tickets were on sale already. So the odds of their being anything left by the next morning worth having were slim to none. Luckily I’m the kind of girl who finds the words ” it’s impossible” to be just the challenge I need to be the one person who can actually manage to  pull it off. After sitting at the computer all night debating would I be willing to pay the 295? I could get one just the one? Or if all that was left was us all sitting on the grass on the lawn for fifty bucks  a million miles away was it worth going at all?

I suddenly realized while prowling the venue site that the expensive seat weren’t even seats! They were paying for the privilege of standing up all night smashed up against the stage something I hadn’t had any interest at all in doing since long before I turned thirty. But the SEATS were about  180.00 dollars each and every seat in Meriwether is a winner, not a dud in the bunch. Maybe, just maybe, I could get us three of those. But by now its 2 am and my banks are all closed and the tickets go on sale at nine am and I have to get every single penny I have out of every account, off every credit card and have it all in one place and be back in my seat at the computer not one min later than 8: 50 the next morning. I moved everything I had electronically into the checking in one bank and everything I had electronically I could into the checking in the other other. now all I had to do was get up the next morning, hit one bank and wipe it out, hit the other and drop it all in and have it all in one place on one working credit card.

The problem was I had to do it all by taxi cab. During rush hour. As soon as my banks opened and be back on time or it was all for nothing.  I’ve pulled off much crazier schemes plenty of times ( see Ian Hunters Birthday Post) but I hadn’t done it in a long time. And with every hour that passed it was getting more important to me that I get in, no matter what, if there was any way humanly possible.

At 7:00 am after being up all night I was ready for the plan to commence, Luckily one of my banks opened at 8 am and the other 8: 30 if I had the money out of the eight am one and could get it to the 8:30 one he moment the doors opened I could be home at 8: 45 .  Called the cab company and there were no cabs at all for an hour. So I jumped on the first bus that took me straight t my first bank. There at 8:05 money removed to the last dime and right next door to a cab stand. Surely phase two would kick off any min. but stood and I stood and I stood the cab stand in the freezing cold as the minutes ticked past and no cab was to be found. Until 8: 36. I leap in like the police commandeering a car and scream at the driver” We have to fly like the wind or all is for naught!  GO!” and bless his little heart he does and I have all the money I could beg borrow or steal in one bank and on one working credit card and am home by 8: 55…  For the HARD part.

My heart is pounding, my adrenaline pumping, I’m buzzed to the gills, wired to the max,  and this is not something I am going to fail at.  And when I’m that determined I rarely do. The minute he clock hits 9 I am frantically logging into the site, and I keep getting offered great seats ( OMG THERE ARE SOME LEFT) but every time I go to pay I get booted out of the system from so many people trying to use it at once and every time I log back in the tickets are further back. Soon there will not be any further back to go and I start to resign myself to the possibility of failure. But at last the machine doesn’t boot me out of the system , and I’m so relieved to have gotten seats at all I spend the 180.00 I had leftover to put back into all the accounts to last the rest of the month on  a  fourth ticket! I HAVE THEM! They are mine!

And immediately I burst into tears and fall apart at the seams for the entire weekend. I did not  realize how much it meant to me and how much emotion I was holding back until I had them in my hand and was sure I would get in. so you can imagine  how special it was going to have to be for me, and for all different ranges of Queen fans, Old timers like me, and some who never thought it would be the same without Freddie, those who only knew Queen from the eighties with iconic stash Freddie, people wanting them too succeed, people go expecting them to fail… how in the world were they actually  going to pull this thing off? But I didn’t care. I didn’t think about that just then. I was going to see Brian and Roger again. That was the only thing that mattered to me.

And by the way, my kid brother reimbursed me for not just his girlfriends but for my ticket as well, which I never expected. Really nice thing for him to do. So I wanted to make a point of pointing it out. That left me with one to give away or sell. I figured by the show time came, if I couldn’t find the perfect person to take it I could probably sell it for enough to cover the three original tickets.

So you may be asking yourself right about now ” When the hell is she actually going to get to the review of the show?”  Excellent question. I’ve been trying to get there since I  started this and still haven’t made it have I? Maybe I better let this be part be the prologue, part one and the concert itself be part two. Not that it does you any good if you have read this far already might as well tough it out to the end lol

The day has arrived . It’s Sunday June 20, 2014. I was supposed to spend all sat resting but of course I couldn’t possibly sit still so I spent the whole day and night cleaning the house. I’ve never even more ready for a concert in my life! My hair is professionally done a fetching combination of blood red with streak of cobalt blue, my fake fingernails painted like beautiful blue butterfly wings. There was a close to last minute crisis about my dresses not arriving by show time but I decided to make due with a silver and black Gothic ball gown! After all there is no such thing as too glam for Queen or even too over the top. The sky is literally the limit!

I’ve taken to creating and collecting dolls the last few years and I made a lovely set of Queen with not one but two Freddie’s I was determined to take on that off chance I could slip past Queen super security but fairly sure that I couldn’t. If I could not get near them as a gorgeous teenage girl the odds of me doing it as a middle aged nut with a basket full of creepy weird large queen dolls were not going to be much better, but one can always dream. And I enjoy the hell out of taking my Queen out for photo ops and I thought the rest of the fans might  get a kick out of seeing them as well.  If I had been going on my own or had my own transport I would have been up at the gig working on it at ten am when the crew was fairly relaxed and there was no union security but I figured by the time the doors opened at show time all I could do was give it one last desperate shot.

To my brothers misfortune his girlfriend  didn’t feel well enough to go see a band that she just wasn’t that crazy about ,  and so to my great delight my adorable daughter agreed to go in her place! I was thrilled to  bits. I had wanted her to go all along and she kept saying no, more firmly the more I  cajoled begged and  insisted but by the evening of the show she hadn’t arranged anything better to do and decided she was keen after all!

There was an almost catastrophe the day before when I didn’t realized the tickets had already been mailed to us and I finally  found them by accident at the last minute so as concerts go, this was having a less than average number of  screw-ups in advance so of course I was terrified.  So far nothing had gone terribly horribly wrong. That’s a bad sign when it comes to a road trip in my world. I get dropped off at my mom’s in Baltimore where my brother lived about 1 pm and somehow four hours just did not seem time enough to get ready!

But finally at 5: 30 he shows and we are off to the gig where the doors open at 6: 30. I hadn’t been to Meriwether in thirty years and  forgot how much walking there was to do from parking lot to seat, but adorable daughter cheerfully gave a hand whenever necessary  at getting to our seats with a heavy basket of huge goth queen dolls that probably weighed almost as much as she did. And I was right, the fans loved them. They were petted and posed with and passed all around us so people could get pics. And Roby, the adorable daughter didn’t mind a bit trotting over to the other side of the venue to the closest spot you could get to the backstage for a Hail Mary play before show time. At one point I spotted a beautiful girl with long dark curls  and a smoking hot bod covered with enough official laminated credentials as most of the crew put together and she came when I called her over. She couldn’t have been nicer and said leave the dolls here and  I will be right back and show them to the band, but it was ten mins until they were due on stage and I loved them too much ( and they cost way too much money) to make to let them out of my sight the entire show, on the off chance they got to Brian and Roger, and then back to me safely after the show and I knew the security guard would or take responsibility or guarding them for us until we got back, so we wisely decided since it was minutes to show time to head back to our seats so we wouldn’t disturb anyone coming down the aisle once the show started. I had just enough time for a few snaps of my own with the dolls

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Before  a cloud of  white white fog started to rise off the stage and the unmistakable sound of brains guitar started to fill the air.

The whole place went nuts and the show HAD BEGUN! It kicked off with some early Queen! How delightful, and wisely none of it song too identified as Freddie’s. I must admit by the time they broke into The Seven Seas of Rhye I was violently shaking my poor daughter by both shoulders shouting  PUT BEFORE ME WHAT IS MINEEEEEEE the SEVEN SEAS OF RHYEEE but then I took pity on her and gave her a break due the terrified look on her face and tuned her loose. Since she will probably be the one to pick out my nursing home I thought it best if I not appear any more senile than already am.  Adam Lambert was doing a fantastic job vocally and physically but even though I was totally caught up in it and enjoying the hell out of every min there were already a few things starting to stick in my craw. Rogers drum kit was so low and so far back it almost felt as if he were intended to be in  the parking lot out back  behind the venue. And there was no volume on his mic.   Plus Adam could not stand not to be in very single frame of the big screen cameras. So it seemed every time Roger was finally appearing in close up about 40 foot tall on the screen doing some fab drum parts Adam would leap in the frame and the camera would shift to him!  or he would us the time Roger was playing to elicit screams out of the audience drowning out everything Roger was doing.

I don’t know if it was vanity or choreography or if he was just not a seasoned enough a musician or  accustomed enough to being in a band with musicians of his caliber but he didn’t really seem to get that the drums are actual MUSICAL instruments and not just a beat to gyrate your hips to, to make the audience squeal like stuck pigs and  seeing Roger play them is a very large part of Queens appeal. It was not the time to prance across the stage or do the can-can and shout out some nonsense that  would get the crowd screaming and rowdy, it was completely  unnecessary  and unwanted, there was absolutely NO need to do something ” interesting” so people wouldn’t get bored, We were watching Roger! there is absolutely nothing boring about that! For some of of us he was 50 percent of the reason we were there so STFU and get out of the spotlight when he is in it Adam. Roger seemed to be not anywhere near as highlighted as a star should be… where was the huge drum risers we were used to ? covered with flashing lights? if there weren’t for the few moments he was on the big screen you would hardly have known he was there at all!

And during  all the songs Brian and Adam were out front clearly having the  time  of  their lives ,Brian giving Adam some whispered stage directions, or musical cues, the two of them laughing and chatting between the songs, even during them! and don’t know about Rogers feelings but I was having real pangs of jealousy for him. I didn’t come here to see the Adam  and Brian show, I wanted Roger to be the one out there, laughing and smiling and chatting with Brian, like it had been with Paul . It was the Roger and Brian show then, the loss of Freddie was still so fresh and they clung to each other and sang their songs with Paul  just helping out when absolutely necessary. I was hoping for much more than a stadium gig  in a small venue, so polished and rehearsed and designed to highlight the thing in the show i had the least interest at all in seeing, Adam.

It was so very sweet though, there were moments Brian was so clearly moved by the reception he was getting and the energy coming back and how the crowds knew every word to every single song you could feel the love coming right back  at us in waves and on many an occasion he had to wipe a tear from his eye.

At the time it felt like Brian and Roger did almost nothing together, of that sort of thing for this show  and Roger got slighted and had almost no opportunities to sing and certainly it is true he had very few to sing. but to be fair before I wrote this tonight I watched the whole show one more time and there was a good 45 mines at the start of Brian and Roger interacting and Roger  did sing  one song The Days of our Lives , but not even” I’m in love with my car” or “Drowse” or” Tenement Funster”

It just few by so quick at the time and so close to the start that it seemed  those moment o f Brian and He together just lasted no time at all.

Rogers son Rufus came along to fill in on the drums when needed but it gave me the same feeling as the last  Indiana Jones movie, that were trying to phase the real Indy out so they could sneak in a new young fresh one and I didn’t like it any better with my fav band then I did it a fav movie!  The  second half of the show got even  flashier than the first and that’s when it started to annoy me a bit because they were doing more songs that were too well associated with Freddie  but in all fairness, there were also moments, quite wisely they had left out just for that reason.  For instance he did Fat bottom girls but ended it without the classic bicycle race ending Freddie did so well.

One thing I kept trying to remind myself   the second half  was Queen are consummate musicians and perfectionists and their shows so elaborately designed with such dramatic special effects that they must be choreographed and blocked out like a Broadway show. Believe me If there is going to be a shooting plume of fire and brimstone directly behind your back  during your solo your butt better be  standing right smack in the middle of the electrical tape x put there to tell you just where to stand  or the results could be very unpleasant indeed.

I guess I was us hoping for something a bit looser, a few flubs or bloopers, something more intimate, it being a smaller venue. Roger and Brian to look at each other and share a grin but I guess when you have been playing together as long as they have they are its  a well-oiled machine as they don’t really have to have  that eye contact or little visible  telepathic moments  between them to be playing in perfect sync.  Now, keep in mind I’m still really enjoying the show, they’re Queen songs performed beautiful by Adam Lambert and I was doing just fine with that. UNTIL they go to Radio Ga Ga. AND  Adam began to sing it instead of Roger.

I’m sorry that just plain wrong, no matter how you try to look at it. What is this kid? 25 years old or something? Hes probably never even owned a vinyl record in his life!  What does he know about laying in bed at night listening to a radio serial because you don’t have a telly yet? or hiding a tinny old radio under his pillow to listen to a bunch of static on am or pirate radio? Does he even know who Wolfman Jack or John Peel is? Does he even know who John Deacon is  for gods sake? and that really bothered me, especially considering how much it touched me the last time. And all week  it bothered me more and more and I think it was the one big terrible flaw in a show  that really  was as close to perfect as anyone could have gotten it under the circumstances, So many people to please, so many people expecting so much, so many that would be so easily upset, striking a balance being so incredibly hard.

but  the next  thing you knew there was Freddie fifty feet tall singing Bohemian Rhapsody then a single encore, We will Rock You and We are the Champions and then it was over, and they were gone.

Just as always, I figured the band had taken off before the crowds knew the show was over, but the rest of  my little group were very cool and accommodating and had no trouble taking the dolls back over to the backstage area to see if the black haired beauty from MTV came out to find us. And surprisingly  she did!

Even though the band was long gone she said she would take pics of the dolls to show them but only snapped a few before she was called away, although she said she  would come back. We were just about to give up when a very nice man came out and said she had sent him and the first thing he did was ask for our contact details and hen take about 5-6 shots of he dolls for her, even though I not sure if he knew what he was supposed to be doing with them. And I was so pleased that she had been so kind and thoughtful and sincere as to follow through on it all, especially when she was clearly insanely busy, I was perfectly happy to call it a night and head for home.  It took us ages to get to the car and adorable daughter carried the dolls most of he way. We kept having to stop stop  so people could play with them. It was really all a person could ask for and more.

The rest of the week I spent  resting on the couch, ice pads on my knees in terrible pain from taking a ridiculous number of steps up and down, so many times when I wasn’t used to it,and watching snippets of Queen gigs from this show and over the years and began to pick the show apart. Which is why I found it in full tonight and watched he whole thing start to finish without the distraction and it being live and there being a huge screaming crowd  BEFORE I wrote this and I really hadn’t been fair to them with my bitching during the week, comparing them to the Queen shows of old, and the first shows without Freddie. The whole show had just all happened so fast and there was so much to take in and remember while it was happening.

But tonight  watching it I also remembered how hard Queen had it creating this show in the fist place. Trying to find away to please everyone,  replace someone who truly was irreplaceable, which was really a task that was so close to impossible the fact they gt anywhere near it at all is astounding  .

The only real moments I truly still hated ( and there could have been dozens) was  Rogers almost complete absence from Radio Ga Ga vocally and visually which I just can’t comprehend .  It would have  been  the absolute highlight of the show for me. But you can’t please everyone and they come as close as anyone could have gotten . So God Save whats left of our Queen.

It was a marvelous evening and a beautiful ending? I don’t know . They are back in the studio. There may be more happily ever after to come. .. Maybe. and maybe not, for me.

If the next Queen gig is Adam Lambert and Rufus Taylor on drums and couple of nameless faceless musicians and Brian and its selling out massive stadiums you know I will not be there. I will be doing what Roger will most likely be. Watching it the next day on YouTube with big bowl of popcorn and that’s okay by me.

I never did hear anything from Queen Management about the dolls so I guess they never saw the pics but I don’t really  mind in the least. Queen have always been the big fish that got away and it only makes me love them more. What would have I had to say if I had been ushered back gate for Brian and Roger to pose and autographs my dolls? Or if I were to get some kind of lovely thoughtful note from the band?  I’m quite sure it would be more than I could take . I wouldn’t give clue what to say back and  don’t think i ever want to be in the position to have to worry about that.

It would be the one and only thing in my lifetime that could make his girl speechless!

If you want to see the show and decide for yourself there are lots of clips on you tube. i hope this one works   Enjoy