For those that actually saw Queen live back in the day

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]mike hunt wrote:[/b]

In some ways I cosider Queen more complex than a band like rush. I heard my share of cover bands doing a decent job of 2112. Not so much of Bo Rhap or Biycle Races. Could you Imagine many bands doing a cover of side Black? Queen were very complex in their own way.[/QUOTE]

For sure, Queen's records had great complexity to them, but that comes down the technology that was available to them. Rush's arrangements weren't as lush. They were more direct, simply three guys playing, with some extra keyboard or guitar parts now and again.

But in terms of their technical ability - the guys in Rush are simply better players than Queen. Their chops have always been in better shape, past and present, on record and on stage. Even at their peak, Queen could never pull off La Villa Strangiato.

Cover bands can't pull off most Queen tunes because they need four guitarists and two dozen singers. Most attempts to recreate the albums with less than that end up sounding like a bad Abba tribute.

There are a million guys who can play Rush songs because you just need to practice to get that good. But you can't practice to write a Bohemian Rhapsody. And that's why people will know Queen in 300 years and probably won't know Rush.
[/QUOTE]
Excellent post, Rush are one of the best. Queen are one of the few bands that are completely different on stage compared to the studio records. Not many bands could pull that Off. live they were more of a straight foward Rock Band.

[QUOTE]

[b]Vocal harmony wrote:[/b] Yes there were/ are bands who play more complex music better than Queen, Zappa, Rush, King Crimson, Muse, Dream Theatre. . . The list is endless, but I don't think any could excite an audience in the same way that Queen did. Simon Cowell might go on about the X factor but in the real world very few had it or have it. Queen really did in bucket loads[/QUOTE]
Agree with what Wizard said - also don't forget that most bands today, including Muse as far as I'm concerned, play to click tracks live.

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

Agree with what Wizard said - also don't forget that most bands today, including Muse as far as I'm concerned, play to click tracks live.[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't say most, but certainly quite a few. Jack White would strap his balls to a live battery pack before playing to a click.

And I'm not entirely sure it's a bad thing. It's like clockwork. It's an entire production, not just guys playing. It's a different brand of entertainment that has evolved from the technology becoming increasingly available. The part of me that loves hearing a band play like Led Zeppelin at their peak thinks it's too calculated, but the part of me that has seen Muse in recent years thinks it's a fantastic experience in the moment ... but it's just ... different. It probably isn't much fun listening to concert recordings from night to night, since it's all so calculated.

Rush have done it since the 80s. Even Dream Theater are doing it now. With the lights and production it's still a very good show, but the spontaneity factor just isn't there anymore.

My feelings remain mixed.

Even live can be a bad experience. I saw Queen twice and they were very different experiences.

The first was The Works tour Birmingham NEC second night. The NEC is a giant shoe box with nasty boomy audio. Myself and my brother were in one of the far back corners, couldn't see a bloody thing we were so far back (no big monitors in 1984), it was excessively loud and yet poor audio quality. And afterwards I had hearing threshold shift, couldn't hear a thing for about 6 hours. I bet that damaged my hearing, I was 16 at the time. Altogether a bit of a disappoinment.

The second time was The Magic Tour at Newcastle Football Stadium. What a difference! We were in the middle of the pitch about a third of the way back. The sound quality was great and it wasn't deafening, I could hear afterwards. We (myself, my brother and my girlfriend) could see everything from that location, and it didn't rain (a worry with outdoor concerts). Altogether a fantastic experience, and there's even a pretty good quality bootleg of that concert.

Had I only gone that Works concert, I dread to think what my long term opinion of Queen live would have been.

And these days I wear music earplugs to live concerts. God knows why all concerts are so loud you need earplugs to hear them safely, but that appears to be the standard way it is done. It's stupid.

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

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

Agree with what Wizard said - also don't forget that most bands today, including Muse as far as I'm concerned, play to click tracks live.[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't say most, but certainly quite a few. Jack White would strap his balls to a live battery pack before playing to a click.

And I'm not entirely sure it's a bad thing. It's like clockwork. It's an entire production, not just guys playing. It's a different brand of entertainment that has evolved from the technology becoming increasingly available. The part of me that loves hearing a band play like Led Zeppelin at their peak thinks it's too calculated, but the part of me that has seen Muse in recent years thinks it's a fantastic experience in the moment ... but it's just ... different. It probably isn't much fun listening to concert recordings from night to night, since it's all so calculated.

Rush have done it since the 80s. Even Dream Theater are doing it now. With the lights and production it's still a very good show, but the spontaneity factor just isn't there anymore.

My feelings remain mixed.
[/QUOTE]

Quite true, and people tend to forget that "playing to a click" does not mean "having a drum machine do the work for you". It's a skill in its own right, and god have mercy on the drummer who tries but gets lost along the way....

On topic: just as there were several installments of Queen - the studio band, there were also at least two incarnations of Queen - the live band. I first saw them in 1982, not knowing then that their best live years were just behind them. It's hard to judge a band by its musical quality amidst a screaming, pushing and sweating mass, Their self proclaimed mission on stage was always to unite and entertain, and I never saw a single show where they didn't succeed. Musical proficiency is just part of the package, and they always managed to make it look effortless on stage.

I'd say they were quite a bit better live than most people on this board give them credit for these days (remember that showing thier musical prowess was never a goal to begin with). Compared to a band like Dream Theater however, techncally they were just average. There is just one thing to remember: when Dream Theater were practsing hard in their bedrooms and dreaming of glory, they were listening to Queen.

And on a personal note, listening to DT leaves me in awe, but it's the sort of awe you get from eating frozen pizza. Listening to Queen makes me forget all about analyzing their music very quickly, but always leaves me with the GLOW......

Remember, what made The Beatles the best of all time was their songwriting abilities, not musical ability. Queen were better writers by a country mile than DT IMO.

Good to see some sensible, measured praise for the classic Queen line up. They were absolute great back then, and people have been able to capture here what made them great, rather than just the gushing fandom praise and empty comments that often masquerades as "debate" here. For me, a big part of the classic sound was Fred playing piano live. It adds depth. quality and variety to the performance. For me, they were a lesser band live when Fred started focusing on his "frontman" persona. Even less well-known songs that don;t have multi-layered vocals like Spread Your Wings have that classic Queen sound because of the piano input.

Saw Queen in 1982, 1984 and 1986. Queen were a great live band, mostly because of the atmosphere and during the concert and the phantastic voice of Freddie (when he was in shape) . I remember in 1984, lights out and 21:00 start of the concert 21:20. Freddie's voice got worse in the eighties compared to 70's. In my opinion Queen were live at their best between 1977 and 1979. I'm also a Status Quo fan (saw them 20 times) and although you can't compare the music I always have missed a second guitar player in Queen. Brian has to carry the whole show himself and that's pretty tough. Status Quo have a great solo guitarist (Rossi, very much underrated) and probably the best rhythm guitar player (Parfitt). I'm a guitar player myself and I have noticed numerous mistakes made by Brian live, especially during the 1986 shows in Holland, and when you listen to Quo live it's stands as a house.

What's also not speaking in the advantage of Queen is the synthesizer sounds made by different players, but not always visible on stage (for example: the radio ga ga sounds on live aid, Hand claps on under pressure in Rock Montreal, Piano parts in seven seas of rhye during the Magic tour). As said before Queen are great but not the greatest live band!

IMO Queen functioned really well with a single guitar player. One of the things I didn't like about the PR lineup was the use of Jamie Mosses, I felt it took away something of what BM's live playing in Queen was about, and also introduced a different guitar sound.

Live they had that classic British rock format, so many of the great bands of the late 60's and 70's seemed to follow, The Who, Zep, Purple, Cream, Sabbath etc. BM's style of playing has always been very full and leaves little space where a second player could improve things. The thing that helped this was of course the foundation that RT and JD built in the rhythm section.

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

. BM's style of playing has always been very full and leaves little space where a second player could improve things. The thing that helped this was of course the foundation that RT and JD built in the rhythm section.[/QUOTE]

Very true! The 'sonic volcano'....And dont forget Freddie playing piano, or at times Fred/Morgan/Spike....

(I notice from reading about the history of Queen, Morgan Fisher seems to keep popping up one way or the other...played with Mott, Tim Staffell, toured with Queen, probably some others I forget...lol)

[QUOTE] [b]Holly2003 wrote:[/b]

Good to see some sensible, measured praise for the classic Queen line up. They were absolute great back then, and people have been able to capture here what made them great, rather than just the gushing fandom praise and empty comments that often masquerades as "debate" here. For me, a big part of the classic sound was Fred playing piano live. It adds depth. quality and variety to the performance. For me, they were a lesser band live when Fred started focusing on his "frontman" persona. Even less well-known songs that don;t have multi-layered vocals like Spread Your Wings have that classic Queen sound because of the piano input.

[/QUOTE]

I have to say that while I like both Q+PR and Q+AL, I think the thing both of them are missing most is a live grand piano on stage. I only saw Queen in 1984 and 1986 and even though that is after what most people consider their live peak I still miss the piano on stage.

Contrary to what many people think, I feel Spike is OK on synthesisers. But he's bad at the piano parts and it shows.

I was at those two gigs Owen.. I was in the middle of the floor of The NEC, and you're right.. It was hellishly loud. I was only 14 and it was my second gig after the Police.. I'd never experienced volume anything like it.. I remember thinking 'Is this legal?'...However, once I'd got my head around the volume, it began to sound pretty good where I was.. You could pick everything out in the mix.. I suppose it just goes to show the difference your position in an arena can make.

I was right at the back of the stadium at Newcastle, having been near the front all day and then making the mistake of moving after Quo to get a surreptitious pint of underage lager ( I was 16) After that, there was no getting back into the thick of the crowd which seemed to double in size an hour or so before Queen came on.. I remember the cheer that Roger's drumkit got when it was unveiled.. I was sick as a parrot when One Vision started and we were scrabling round at the back trying to find a decent vantage point.. Which we did, and I've got to say that even at the back of St James' the sound was brilliant.. No delay towers, so it was all the main PA but still as clear as a bell, even over that distance.. Outdoor gigs don't sound anywhere near as good as that today in my opinion, with puny line arrays farting away.. Give me Queens massive Clair S4 rig any day..


Even live can be a bad experience. I saw Queen twice and they were very different experiences.

The first was The Works tour Birmingham NEC second night. The NEC is a giant shoe box with nasty boomy audio. Myself and my brother were in one of the far back corners, couldn't see a bloody thing we were so far back (no big monitors in 1984), it was excessively loud and yet poor audio quality. And afterwards I had hearing threshold shift, couldn't hear a thing for about 6 hours. I bet that damaged my hearing, I was 16 at the time. Altogether a bit of a disappoinment.

The second time was The Magic Tour at Newcastle Football Stadium. What a difference! We were in the middle of the pitch about a third of the way back. The sound quality was great and it wasn't deafening, I could hear afterwards. We (myself, my brother and my girlfriend) could see everything from that location, and it didn't rain (a worry with outdoor concerts). Altogether a fantastic experience, and there's even a pretty good quality bootleg of that concert.

Had I only gone that Works concert, I dread to think what my long term opinion of Queen live would have been.

And these days I wear music earplugs to live concerts. God knows why all concerts are so loud you need earplugs to hear them safely, but that appears to be the standard way it is done. It's stupid.[/QUOTE]

I was at those two gigs Owen.. I was in the middle of the floor of The NEC, and you're right.. It was hellishly loud. I was only 14 and it was my second gig after the Police.. I'd never experienced volume anything like it.. I remember thinking 'Is this legal?'...However, once I'd got my head around the volume, it began to sound pretty good where I was.. You could pick everything out in the mix.. I suppose it just goes to show the difference your position in an arena can make.

I was right at the back of the stadium at Newcastle, having been near the front all day and then making the mistake of moving after Quo to get a surreptitious pint of underage lager ( I was 16) After that, there was no getting back into the thick of the crowd which seemed to double in size an hour or so before Queen came on.. I remember the cheer that Roger's drumkit got when it was unveiled.. I was sick as a parrot when One Vision started and we were scrabling round at the back trying to find a decent vantage point.. Which we did, and I've got to say that even at the back of St James' the sound was brilliant.. No delay towers, so it was all the main PA but still as clear as a bell, even over that distance.. Outdoor gigs don't sound anywhere near as good as that today in my opinion, with puny line arrays farting away.. Give me Queens massive Clair S4 rig any day..

Sorry for the double post..

It's cool reading all these fan stories!