Well Toronto?lets here all about it!!

Wow.

Some random thoughts here:

I have viewed the DVD (Return..) over and over, and also downloaded most of the concerts from the European tour and listened to them repeatedly. Still, seeing them live in person was an amazing experience, despite being very familiar with the show.

As others have mentioned previously, Under Pressure was played for the first time. Brian introduced it by saying something along the lines that it's his favourite part of the show: the part where they try something new. I'm paraphrasing here, but it was something along those lines. Someone from the stage (Roger?) was yelling at Brian while he was introducing the song. You could hear "play it!" or something like that over and over. Sorry, my memory's not too sharp right now =) He then said something like "There's a lot of pressure for me to play it."

Brian did well on the high notes, but I think there was a miscue, with Jamie coming in too early on the backup vocals, which caught Brian off guard.

Paul also had to refer to the teleprompter for the lyrics to Under Pressure. Not a big deal, except the big screen happened to have a zoom up of his face right when he was heavily concentrating (not singing, just reading) on the teleprompter on the ground. It looked funny =)

In introducing Love of My Life, Brian said that there was a groundswell of people wanting to sing along, whereas in America, people liked to be sung to. He then asked, "What about Canada?" People cheered loudly, but he said, "Well, you can do whatever you want," in a friendly way. People did sing fairly well. I was a bit surprised. Also, Brian got a standing ovation when he walked down the catwalk to perform.

Dragon Attack was high energy and well executed, except for Paul coming in too early (though he caught himself). I liked how they included the bass solo, drum solo, and guitar solo, as in the studio version. The ending was "cute."

The new song, Take Love, had a decent enough riff to make it catchy. Can't recall it now, though.

Did anyone catch what Roger said after his drum solo?

All Right Now was amazing. Especially towards the end, when the guitar comes in for a big build up after a small bass solo (as in the studio version).

I'm actually sick and tired of We Will Rock You and We are the Champions, but I appreciated it tonight. It looked like Paul forgot the lyrics during Champions, and improvised with some "We love you ToooronntooOOOoOOOOoOOoo," type things for a good 15 seconds or so as only Paul can do. Brian filled in with some guitar noises. When Paul eventually remembered where he was and continued with the verse, I saw Brian look up at Danny, who applauded. I guess he was applauding at the relatively smooth recovery, although Brian's guitar noises covered up the first few words of Paul's recovery.

Every song got a good reception, though I noticed a lot of people started to head to the bathroom after Brian followed up Love of My Life with the slow start to Hammer to Fall.

The "speeding through the streets of London" thing on the screen was probably lost to most of the audience -- I doubt most fans here are aware of the whole Buckingham Palace thing. Maybe they could have found something else to put up there.

Can't think of anything else to say. It was an amazing show with great sound, lights, mood, everything. I will never forget this day.

What an amazing show. A few miscues but all in all awesome stuff! I enjoyed the new tune and thought Bad Company was performed especially well. As familiar as I am with the show I was still surprisingly moved by the Bohemian Rhapsody portion with Freddie singing. Very powerful stuff indeed.

I desperately wanted to hear IWIA, but Under Pressure was brilliant. Very unexpected but well appreciated!

i believe after the drum solo, roger said ' well that was short enogh wasn't it? fuck it." then, let there be drums into "123,123...ooh ohh oh oh....the machine of a dream, such a dream machine....the pistons a pumping....the humb caps are gleam...."


mike

GO LEAFS GO
PLEASE LET US MAKE THE PLAYOFFS!!!!

I thought Roger said something like "Fuck Ginger Baker!"

Great! Brian sings some stuff in Under Pressore _O_

I posted this "review" at a non-Queen music message board I hang out at, and I thought I'd post it here since the reading audience on this board will most certainly appreciate it more - LOL!



OH... MY... GOD!!!

I honestly do not have the words right now to give any semblance of a proper detailed review of the amazing and awe-inspiring show I just experienced tonight.

I have waited most of my life for this show. It obviously wasn't the golden age of Queen with Freddie at the fore commanding his audience, and I of course wasn't expecting it to be, but lemme tell ya - it was as bloody close as many of us will ever come to it. Freddie may not have been there in body, but he was most certainly there in spirit. And Paul Rodgers does an absolutely fantastic job in his efforts to somehow fill those damn big shoes. I was honestly blown away by just how good he was, an how great the band jelled as a whole. They truly seem to be having a great time performing together and seemed to be in great spirits tonight.

I've purposely stayed away from watching any footage of other Q + PR shows, other than some of the "Return of the Champions" DVD, and did not read any reviews of other shows so far or look for setlists, so that I would not be too jaded to the whole experience. And am I ever glad that I did. The entire show unfolded before me with one fabulous performance after another, and I was about as thrilled by what I was watching as a kid at Christmas in a room full to the rafters with presents.

I had third row seats that turned out to be just to the right of Brian May's primary stage position, and just to the left of a huge platform at the end of the stage. It was an amazing seat, and felt closer to the stage than 3rd row. I had a perfect up-close view of Brian for more than half of the show and was able to watch him play without any need for the monitors. He played beautifully. It was mindblowing to finally be THAT CLOSE to such a legend.

The whole experience was just overwhelming. To my own surprise (because it's honestly not like me to do this), I found myself tearing up about half a dozen times during the show, including during "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" in the first part of the show for some inexplicable reason, and flat-out weeping during "Love of My Life", "The Show Must Go On" (what a powerful performance - plenty of goosebumps & noticable teary eyes all around me from people of all ages), and even during "Bohemian Raphsody" towards the end - but with good reason:

The entire first half of BoRhap was "played" by Freddie - the stage went dark and suddenly there was Freddie at the piano on the big screen behind the stage, performing it live from a past show. Right before the guitar solo the band reappeared, and kicked into the heavy part live with Paul on vocals. And then the outro, again played by Freddie. And all around me, a sea of people in awe and tears. I heard so many people talking on the way out of the show (and calling in to Q107) who said the exact same thing - the whole show was just amazing, but BoRhap was the absolute stand-out of the show.

Over-all, this now ranks as one the best concerts I've ever attended, easily in the Top Five. I will never forget it. And I'm so eagerly anticipating doing it all over again tomorrow night in Buffalo that I'm honestly not sure how I'm going to sleep .

frikkin Under Pressure!

oh my god!

how cool was that??...quite unexpected,and a pleasant surprise.

Not done flawlessly...but that's a difficult,complex song to pull off live.
They rose to the challenge and did a fine job of it.
Brian intorduced it by saying it was the first time they had ever performed it live in North America.

That's great GlitterQueen! I think that the power of a Queen concert is an amazing thing, and even though it's not 'Golden Era' Queen, it's the next best thing. Glad everyone enjoyed it, I probably should have gone.

Where's Sir GH's review? I know he was looking forward to this show.

Great reviews...awesome to hear about Under Pressure.

It still cracks me up that people say they dropped "Say It's not True"...we're on what, the 8th or 9th show of the tour?? They haven't play SINT on any of the shows so far.

They played SINT on the opening night in Miami.

Under Pressure was played in the We Will Rock You dvd filmed in Montreal .I seen them in 82 on the hot space tour, and I thought they did it then.Once again great show people sill calling in Q107 this morning saying what a great time they had.

Ok, how hard is it for the guys to give us this kind of satisfaction? They play Under Pressure and suddenly we're all happy, hehe :). It's not THAT hard.

I think that the correct term for the type of setlist is not a "rolling setlist" but an "evolving setlist". It changes (very) gradualy every 3 shows or so and it hardly brings back any of the tracks that are left off (BreakFree was surely a surprise, I want it all was a shame).

Comparing the current setlist with the one they played in mid spring 2005 (the shows I attended), now there are 6 different songs for me to enjoy in San Diego in a couple of weeks. I hope they keep Under Pressure in the set, bring back '39 (I'll politely scream it to Brian during his acoustic set, hehe), drop Break Free in favour of I Want it All and maybe some other surprise... Sleeping on the sidewalk? It's Late? It's not that far fetched to hope for another surprise in the next 8 shows or so, or is it? hehe :)

About the setlist, let me put it this way:
Is it an gradually evolving setlist? Yes, it is.
Is it a rolling setlist? NO...
RIP rolling setlist 198X
hehe, just kidding :)

See you in San Diego..

Wiley

best thing so far to get under pressure back, it sounds just like old queen and best song of this tour (Q+PR) i mean best sounding, it must stay on the list !!!! great job for the band!!

Wow, what an amazing show this was!!!

I was in NJ in October and I didn't think it could get any better than that, but this show was even more amazing.

Major Dissapointment was the seats. I had row 7 seats which was great but when I was buying them I called ticketmaster to ask about seating arrangements and was told that lower number seats were closer to catwalk. I wasn't totally convinced and of course they were completely wrong and I was on the far side of left floor... man, i reatlly hate tickemaster.

I was happy to have my digital camera with me and used up my entire 1gb card on pictures and videos, i must have 15 video clips of the show including Under Pressure which was awesome and wil be a great memory.

Brian was in top form as everyone mentioned and Roger was amazing... loved the vocals as usual. Paul Rodgers was very good and I really enjoyed some of the Bad Co stuff they played.

Glad everyone enjoyed the show. Only sad part is that I was thinking at the end that this could be the last time I'll ever seem them live... I really hope that's not the case.