- Joined
- Sep 9, 2012
- Messages
- 419
- Location
- Poland, Warsaw (Central Europe)
- Tagline
- I love BIG amplifiers!
It's been a while I was writing on Phoenix board - crazy time with my job...
Anyway I'd like to share my impressions after the recent Queen concert with Adam Lambert (I guess he won the U.S. Edition of Idol), held last Saturday in Cracow, probably the nicest Polish city.
The concert took place in so called ‘Tauron Arena’ (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauron_Arena_Kraków), which is the sport / entertainment venue quite difficult for any sound crew. I was excited to see Queen, even without Freddy, for the first time in Poland - in my youth times, unlike for many of you guys living not behind the 'iron curtain', such concerts were simply unique. I saw the Queen with Freddy in Paris though during my studies in 1986, so comparisons were immediate... But some facts fist.
Out of 'real Queen' there were only Brian May and Roger Taylor. Together with them there were playing: Rufus Taylor (son of Roger, plying also drums, who was born a few months before Freddy died - I mention this to underline the power of immortal music of the Queen), Spike Edney (keyboards, working with Queen from 80's) and Neil Fairclough (bass guitar). On vocals mainly Adam Lambert, but Brian and Roger had their good moments too. That evening the song list was as follows:
"One Vision"
"Stone Cold Crazy"
"Another One Bites the Dust"
"Fat Bottomed Girls"
"In the Lap of the Gods... Revisited"
"Seven Seas of Rhye"
"Killer Queen"
"I Want to Break Free"
"Somebody to Love"
"Love of My Life"
"'39"
"A Kind of Magic" bass solo
Drum battle - Roger contra Rufus Taylor
"Under Pressure"
"Save Me"
"Who Wants to Live Forever"
"Last Horizon" Brian's solo
"Tie Your Mother Down"
"Dragon Attack"
"I Want It All"
"Radio Ga Ga"
"Crazy Little Thing Called Love"
"Show Must Go On"
"Bohemian Rhapsody"
and for farewell:
"We Will Rock You"
"We Are the Champions".
To me the best songs performed were "Killer Queen", "Love of my live", "I want it all", "Bohemian rhapsody" and "We will rock you". And how about Adam Lambert’s voice? Well, I think it is not good for a rock band. Sounded often 'too sweet' and gentle to me. Maybe fine for a pop music. When in two songs there was Freddy's voice replayed, one of them being “Bohemian rhapsody”, many people had shivers on their back and tears in their eyes. Totally different emotions. Poor Adam Lambert could not get even close to that kind of voice…
And now the reason to tell you all this: the sound reinforcement system was simply terrible! The P.A. had no headroom at all. Those songs which normally we hear at medium volumes were all reinforced at close to max sound levels, so apart from listening to some kind of huge wave of horrible / painful noise there was completely no difference in dynamics. It was indigestible for most listeners staying just in the center of concert space. The sound crew had almost constantly headphones on their ears so no wonder they didn’t hear the mess - “Take them out next time”, one wishes to say….
All in all, and I’m talking ONLY ABOUT THE SOUND QUALITY since Brian and Roger have been no doubt in a great form – God bless them! – it was my worst rock group live performance ever. Can’t understand that kind of approach where the P.A. solution for difficult venues is simply to hit max volumes at all time and smash the audience… These observations seem to be shared after the concert among other Queen fans too.
Lee once said something like: “I’ve been on concerts where music was played louder than at my place, but never better”. With WOPL it is certainly the fact
…, but still pity that so well-known group decided to use probably a medium class P.A. system and apparently a bit too mediocre sound crew…
Have you ever experienced something similar on a live concert?
[video=youtube_share;cvw9cCBjfaI]http://youtu.be/cvw9cCBjfaI[/video]
Anyway I'd like to share my impressions after the recent Queen concert with Adam Lambert (I guess he won the U.S. Edition of Idol), held last Saturday in Cracow, probably the nicest Polish city.
The concert took place in so called ‘Tauron Arena’ (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauron_Arena_Kraków), which is the sport / entertainment venue quite difficult for any sound crew. I was excited to see Queen, even without Freddy, for the first time in Poland - in my youth times, unlike for many of you guys living not behind the 'iron curtain', such concerts were simply unique. I saw the Queen with Freddy in Paris though during my studies in 1986, so comparisons were immediate... But some facts fist.
Out of 'real Queen' there were only Brian May and Roger Taylor. Together with them there were playing: Rufus Taylor (son of Roger, plying also drums, who was born a few months before Freddy died - I mention this to underline the power of immortal music of the Queen), Spike Edney (keyboards, working with Queen from 80's) and Neil Fairclough (bass guitar). On vocals mainly Adam Lambert, but Brian and Roger had their good moments too. That evening the song list was as follows:
"One Vision"
"Stone Cold Crazy"
"Another One Bites the Dust"
"Fat Bottomed Girls"
"In the Lap of the Gods... Revisited"
"Seven Seas of Rhye"
"Killer Queen"
"I Want to Break Free"
"Somebody to Love"
"Love of My Life"
"'39"
"A Kind of Magic" bass solo
Drum battle - Roger contra Rufus Taylor
"Under Pressure"
"Save Me"
"Who Wants to Live Forever"
"Last Horizon" Brian's solo
"Tie Your Mother Down"
"Dragon Attack"
"I Want It All"
"Radio Ga Ga"
"Crazy Little Thing Called Love"
"Show Must Go On"
"Bohemian Rhapsody"
and for farewell:
"We Will Rock You"
"We Are the Champions".
To me the best songs performed were "Killer Queen", "Love of my live", "I want it all", "Bohemian rhapsody" and "We will rock you". And how about Adam Lambert’s voice? Well, I think it is not good for a rock band. Sounded often 'too sweet' and gentle to me. Maybe fine for a pop music. When in two songs there was Freddy's voice replayed, one of them being “Bohemian rhapsody”, many people had shivers on their back and tears in their eyes. Totally different emotions. Poor Adam Lambert could not get even close to that kind of voice…
And now the reason to tell you all this: the sound reinforcement system was simply terrible! The P.A. had no headroom at all. Those songs which normally we hear at medium volumes were all reinforced at close to max sound levels, so apart from listening to some kind of huge wave of horrible / painful noise there was completely no difference in dynamics. It was indigestible for most listeners staying just in the center of concert space. The sound crew had almost constantly headphones on their ears so no wonder they didn’t hear the mess - “Take them out next time”, one wishes to say….
All in all, and I’m talking ONLY ABOUT THE SOUND QUALITY since Brian and Roger have been no doubt in a great form – God bless them! – it was my worst rock group live performance ever. Can’t understand that kind of approach where the P.A. solution for difficult venues is simply to hit max volumes at all time and smash the audience… These observations seem to be shared after the concert among other Queen fans too.
Lee once said something like: “I’ve been on concerts where music was played louder than at my place, but never better”. With WOPL it is certainly the fact
…, but still pity that so well-known group decided to use probably a medium class P.A. system and apparently a bit too mediocre sound crew… Have you ever experienced something similar on a live concert?
[video=youtube_share;cvw9cCBjfaI]http://youtu.be/cvw9cCBjfaI[/video]
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