Whatever the reason, from an artistic and musical perspective Queen's live show suffered as a result of less piano playing. I'd much rather see Fred on the piano for STL than faffing around the stage as he had to do in an attempt to make ANOBTD interesting. [/QUOTE]
Me too. In general the typically intense combination of tight focus on both an instrument and vocal delivery is very visually evocative. One of my favourite videos is a 70's Billy Joel performance of 'Just the Way You Are'. He's at the piano, bathed in blue stage lights and the shots are tight enough that you can see every bead of sweat. The introductory moments of Fred's Milton Keynes and Montreal versions of 'Somebody to Love' are similarly riveting.
tarkintheproud · Member since
It seemed fred got bored of the piano or something in the 80s, he didnt really play all that much on the albums either in the 80s. I always wonder what the Innuendo album (and title song too) would have sounded like with more piano instead of synth (it's a great album and all, but still, personally I think more piano could have sounded pretty cool in some of the songs). Queen was pretty intent on using synths, but I wish they could have achieved a better balance between synth and piano, IMO, instead of phasing piano out all together.
Even so, woulda been cool if Fred had at least played the synth parts live! For me, I felt that whole frontman, showmanship, aspect or whatever you call it for queen was kinda overrated I really preferred the band in the 70s when they seemed to more focused on the music.
Sebastian · Member since
In the 70's, they played an audience three-plus times larger than Wembley Stadium, and they didn't need Ga Ga or Break Free for that (granted, it was free ... that played a pivotal role there...). They entertained such a huge audience with only three hits, and dared playing things like Flick of the Wrist, Prophet's Song, Leroy Brown and a then unreleased track which featured Freddie on his own.
PrimeJiveUSA · Member since
Farlander...I soooo agree with you! I prefer Queen in the studio over Queen live.
Fireplace · Member since
Blame it on stadium rock. From the 1981 tour onwards Queen were playing large stadiums where all subtlety got lost. You can hear it in the backing vocals (check out Now I'n Here through the years), the gradual diminishing of variety in Brian's guitar sounds, the omission of cute little moments like the triangle and the ukelele-banjo, and Freddie playing the piano less and less. What they gained in sheer numbers of concert goers, they lost in varaiation and subtlety. They were always very adamant about not wanting to recreate the album versions exactly on stage, but I sometimes wonder if that was an excuse for paying less and less attention to detail.
Sebastian · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]Fireplace wrote:[/b]
They were always very adamant about not wanting to recreate the album versions exactly on stage, but I sometimes wonder if that was an excuse for paying less and less attention to detail. [/QUOTE]
Indeed. They were very clever, as the whole 'let's not replicate the studio version' approach was broad enough to cover things like the horribly stripped down Bicycle Race.
tomchristie22 · Member since
Fireplace makes a great point. It always upsets me that they started to pay less attention to the music and more attention to the showmanship and scale, I feel that the vocal harmonies on stage suffered from it too, and the vocal harmonies are one of their main distinguishing features in my opinion. That isn't to say they stopped harmonising well, there was just less emphasis and effort in it.
