Sheer Brass Neck wrote: Anything? Live Aid? The concert that produced a documentary calling their set "20 minutes that changed music"? Where the greatest stars of the day played and no one got a reaction (U2, Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Zep) even close to Queen?
Led Zepp, U2 or any other band had the same reaction from the crowd, that's true but its also true that a huge part of that lack of reaction was courtesy of the audio limiters. Remember that Queen cheated and they removed them so they were a lot louder, which in a concert makes a huge difference, and let's not talk about Zepp's performance which was, how can I say it politely? Bad. Yeah, very bad performance. Its not just my opinion. Even Plant admitted it.
Did the Queen reaction was that good because of the audio and the awful Zepp performance? No. But it did sure helped a lot!
Sheer Brass Neck wrote:
Equal to Hammersmith Odeon or The Rainbow gig? Equal to Maple Leaf Gardens in 1977 where people, upon hearing We will rock you for the first time started singing it on Yonge Street in Toronto, without having ever heard the song on the radio? That kind of energy?
You are being totally unfair. None of the guest singers in Queen+ (Adam, Tom Chaplin, George Michael, Robbie Williams or any other singer who has been performing with Queen, except Paul Rodgers) had played new songs. If you are going to compare Freddie to any other singer, then you should compare him to Paul, as both are the only ones who had the chance to sing original material with Queen.
Now, you may think that the current line up lacks this kind of energy which to some extent is true: Their are in their 60s, they were in their 20s in 1977, obviously the energy is different (or non existent to many people) but if you had the chance to see people outside the concerts, many AL fans who may have spent their money to see Queen, they felt that energy and had a similar reaction than your example in Toronto. Perhaps not 100% of non Queen fans, but if you take a look at any Adam forum, fb etc you will find that lots of those AL fans are now interested in Queen and even listening to old material and giving opinion about the next setlist (I have seen AL fans who wants to see The Miracle played live)
Sheer Brass Neck wrote:
I get that people like Adam Lambert. Nice voice, bit of charisma. But anyone who thinks he inhabits the same universe as a TALENT as Freddie Mercury is mentally ill. I don't care if he hits notes night after night that Freddie couldn't hit. People talk about Adam as a better live singer. I'm fair, let's say I give him that over Freddie. Freddie is arguably the greatest front man in rock history. He wrote arguably the greatest song of the rock era, and arguably the most enduring. He is arguably the greatest singer in the rock era. He has written arguably the most diverse style of classic songs of anyone in the rock era. I'd define that as "talent". You call Adam Lambert as talented as that? Can't help you mate.
Claiming someone is mentally ill just because you dont agree with them is very, very unfair.
I think is not fair to claim that Adam is better singer live. One of the reasons Freddie was kind of irregular was because he had vocal nodules for many years.
Now, Freddie played piano, guitar, keyboards, sang, wrote rock anthems that's true, Adam havent made any of those things, that's true too, but if you you have to remember that even talent is subjective. Pavarotti said Barcelona was a disgrace to the classical music and slammed Montserrat Caballé for playing with an "unschooled musician" (a nice way to call Freddie "talentless") Edgar Froese fans criticized him for playing with "unworthy guitar player" Brian May) Pap Baxter fans claims Somebody to Love is bullshit etc etc...
Talent and personal taste are different things, still, people tends to get confused. Would you dare to call Pap Baxter purists (one of the greatest gospel composers ever) idiots? No, because they are gospel purists, just like Pavarotti was purist (but it ended as soon as he saw money, but that's another story)