Brian and Steve Howe on Innuendo

I just wish Brian was less of a perfectionist and prepared to take more risks. I know that makes him what he is but I cannot think of the last time I listened to one of his solos all the way through because they are all just so 'Briany'. The echo thing got boring very quickly, from the first album... from Queen at the Beeb even....

[QUOTE] [b]anniestu44b wrote:[/b]

I still think 'LOUSY' live player is too harsh a statement. He deoes make mistakes I agree, as I said he isn't the best guitar player in the universe, as Brian has stated himself. And no I don't play, I'm just an appreciator of music, not a perfectionist either. I just like sitting back, enjoy listening to good music (of many kinds), not analysing,not picking things to pieces, not breaking things down (I leave that to the talented people/musicians amongst us). Oh and I think I better add that my name isn't Annie, it's Stu lol. I better change my Username![/QUOTE]

Apologies Stu,
I just went on the first name in the icon.

[QUOTE] [b]Oscar J wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]ludwigs wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]Oscar J wrote:[/b]

Liszt was way faster than Mozart.[/QUOTE]

And a dragster is faster than an E-type jag but.....

Which holds more of an emotive preference?[/QUOTE]

I didn't mean anything by that, was just referring to una999's comment, which seemed to suggest that Mozart was the most technically accomplished pianist ever.

Wait, are you comparing Liszt to a dragster? :-)[/QUOTE]

Ha ha.

Liszt has a mammoth wealth of technically and fast works....

[QUOTE] [b]musicland munich wrote:[/b]

@ Ludwigs....great post(s)...[/QUOTE]

Many thanks munich (sic)

Hammer to Fall 2nd Wembley Show, This Solo was amazing assisted by Spike Edney.
Brighton Rock was a bit tired after so many years. I would have preferred BM trying something else It's Late or Father to Son.

Loads of rubbish that Brian is an average guitarist. A thing though is that in the last 10 years he lost a lots of his skills...

But I think that John Deacon is a better bassist that Brian is a guitarist.

John deacon played Spanish guitar also on who needs you and is debated who actually gets the credit for that. .. John deacon could have pulled off an amazing job. Esp him being a finger bassist and those flamenco parts really needs some good finger string coordination. Would have been awesome to have witnessed John perform on the classical guitar

As with a number of people here, I've been a Brian May fan for 30+ years.

I absolutely love his early love playing and The Rainbow release really did a cracking job of showcasing ho hard he could rock.

The issue I have is that Queen set lists have always been so incredibly formulated that there has been little if any chance for Brian to step outside of the expected. His reliance on the Brighton Rock solo is, frankly, laughable - what better time to head for the urinals when he launches into that? Surely someone of his talent could come up with something a little different after all this time.......

If he took a few risks onstage (and these days, that's incredibly unlikely.....) perhaps we might see him step out, but my take is that he's afraid of making any mistakes.

Story here:

http://queenlive.ca/queen/74-05-01.htm

If a tape of this show would come out, I bet we'd learn a lot about Brian May.

http://www.quora.com/How-many-people-in-the-world-play-guitar

According to that, there are about 84 million people in the world who play guitar beyond just basic chords. Even if a million of them were actually technically better than Brian (which I very much doubt but let's go with that), then he's still be technically more accomplished than 98.81% of the guitarists in the world. That means he's much much much much much better than 'average,' and if we factor in the hundreds of millions who only play a few chords (and are therefore much less proficient than Brian), then he's even higher up in the 'elite.'

Now, John played Spanish guitar on 'Who Needs You' but not Spanish 'lead' guitar. Brian did the solos. Seeing John on classical guitar would've been nice but not particularly breath-taking, as far as it's been documented he only played a bit and was good enough to pull off a fireplace rendition of 'Classical Gas,' which is something he shares with hundreds of thousands of amateur guitarists (and, nowadays, YouTube guitarists).

I think, and hopefully time will prove me either right or wrong, if there's a tape of that Joe Perry incident, all it'll teach us is what we already know: that people exaggerate in their recollections, and that Brian's memory's far from perfect. Not in the sense of not being able to play a concert from memory, but in the sense of not remembering the incident accurately.

It comes back to the old thing that being a musician is far more than having a good technique, and some of the best musicians have been technically sloppy, even at the top level.

Nureyev was a technically less than perfect dancer, but he was meticulous too, a bit like Brian. Freddie was a less than technically perfect singer or pianist, but he had unbelievable energy and panache with it, Horowitz was a less than technically perfect pianist, but he knew how to connect with the music he was playing. There are many great techniques out there that are frankly boring or lack some greater knowledge.

Perhaps within the confines of the Queen show, Brian felt he didn't need to take so many risks. Besides in some of the middle period show, Freddie took some risks didn't he? With the vocal improvisations in Prophet's song for instance, at Earl's Court, and he was such a ball of light on stage that perhaps Brian felt his job was to keep things more grounded so the show actually functioned. I don't know that's the case, I'm just speculating.

^^^ good points, but within the frame work that BM played/plays he wasn't that well rehearsed and often made repeated mistakes over the years.

As an aside to this, BM on his website today is asking what they should play at the New year gig. So I'm guessing they have allowed one day to rehearse a show that's going to be viewable by millions, the chance for mistakes is a lot higher than the chance of a well played show,

As for Freddie's improvisation during Prophet's song. It was more rehearsed than you'd think. John Harris had to switch in the delays as and when needed, in order to get that right they would have had to spend time on it.

I think some forget that improv in live shows isn't necessarily a sign of skill. It could be ego, for example. And as someone who once tried to listen to a Grateful Dead concert, I can testify improv is often boring and unlistenable. Queen put on a show for the audience that was there that night, not for people who would be listening to bootlegs decades later. For each concert audience, the performance was "new" every night (with exceptions being those people who went to multiple shows) so radically changing a setlist or doing improv was really an unnecessary luxury for a professional touring band. But of course they did do it on occasion: Fred and Brian especially. And of course there are bands/musicians who have a different approach, and change things a lot. I don't think that many guitar solos are improvised on the spot anyway: a guitarist will usually have tried all those licks beforehand. I'll bet the different way Brian plays the Crazy Little Thing solo didn't come to him in a moment of inspiration onstage, for example.

[QUOTE] [b]Vocal harmony wrote:[/b]

As an aside to this, BM on his website today is asking what they should play at the New year gig. So I'm guessing they have allowed one day to rehearse a show that's going to be viewable by millions, the chance for mistakes is a lot higher than the chance of a well played show,
. [/QUOTE]

Call me cynical, but I would suggest that whatever anyone responds with regarding song suggestions for NYE or the upcoming tour, will have absolutely NO impact whatsoever on what is actually played! The set will already be settled on.

Same goes for the past however many years that QOL has openly asked for fans' suggestions as to what should be considered for release; all simply marketing ploys I'm afraid :-)

It's a sad state of affairs these days. Freddie's dead, Brian sucks, John is a retired recluse and Roger is old, senile and totally out of shape. And Live at the Rainbow sounds too good. Thank God we have the amazing talents of people like Greg Brooks, Anton and WK Mahler to maintain our faith in music. They are the real reason we come here, not that lousy stinkin' ol' band called Queen.

Brian is indeed the most boring guitarist ever, it's incredible how songs like Who Needs You, It's Late, Dead On Time, Cool Cat, Keep Good Company and Brighton Rock all sound exactly the same. Thanks for pointing that out to me. Perhaps we should consider giving Brian an award for being the most succesful absolutely lousy guitar player ever.