The Best Queen Songs of All Time functions – as usual – as our introduction to the music of legendary pop-rock band, Queen. Queen rose out of the ashes of Smile – which Brian May (guitar) and Roger Taylor (drums) formed in university – with Freddie Mercury (vocals, piano) and John Deacon (bass) joining the line-up in 1970 and 1971 respectively.
Although the legendary British rock band Queen effectively ended with the tragic death of lead singer Freddie Mercury over 20 years ago, the legacy of the band remains vital and strong. Now, add this previously unreleased set of recordings to the must-have with list of every diehard Queen fan.
Something that is bound to elicit a strong response from diehard Queen fans – most common one being that it is not Queen without the late Freddie Mercury.
A transitional year for me. I welcomed the new decade as a National Serviceman having enlisted on Boxing Day, 1979. But more importantly, my musical tastes were changing as well, significantly. Sometime in 1978, I had been exposed to punk when a JC friend played to my friends & I, the Sex Pistols‘ Anarchy in the UK LP (banned in Singapore but smuggled in for good measure) and to be honest I was unimpressed. For a pop-rock lover weaned on The Beatles, Deep Purple, Queen, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, the Sex Pistols seemed dumb and barbaric!
That said, by 1980 I had begun to cotton on to the post-punk movement and had already started listening to the pioneering new bands of that era, which seemed far removed from the old-school rockers of my relative youth. Fueled by the noises made by rock mags like NME, Sounds & Melody Maker, I had started to abandon the old bands (as irrelevant) and had ’embraced’ the future of rock.
Virtually impossible to watch this without the inevitable lump in throat and teary-eyed response. The measure of love, admiration and respect that the late great Freddie Mercury and Queen engendered amongst their peers is plainly obvious judging from the stellar lineup of this tribute concert.
This 3-DVD collection contains the whole shebang – the opening acts (Extreme does an awesome Queen medley), the main event itself (simply mind-boggling from start to finish) and a bonus DVD of extras (10th anniversary documentary, rehearsal performances and photo galleries).