Queen
It’s a long, fun story, involving internet obsession, celebrity look-a-likes and the project that kept my sisters and me off the streets, out of trouble and laughing ourselves sick a year ago that culminated in having killer seats at the Excel to see Queen with Adam Lambert, last weekend.
Here’s the short version: Inspired by the fact that these two guys look like they could be brothers, Katie, MJ and I said “I wish there was a movie where they played brothers!”
Then winter came, we had nothing else to do, so we wrote the movie we wanted to see. Naturally, we thought of this guy to play their dad. Don't you want to see a movie starring these three guys??
The fruit of our labor can now be found here, under the title Change of Tune.
The problem with writing a script inspired by actors is that if they don’t want to do it, it becomes a moot point. Oh, well. It was a blast and I think our story is hilarious.
So of course, we wanted to see our inspiration, up close and in action. Besides, who doesn’t love Queen? And if there’s a human on earth who can at least try to step into Freddy Mercury’s shoes, it’s Adam Lambert. We’ve known that since day one of American Idol, season 8.
Originally, Margy was going to come with us but her vacation days didn’t line up perfectly. At Nanners birthday party during Hubbellpalooza, I noticed that our niece, Harriet, knew all the words to the Queen songs on the play list we were listening to, so we offered her Margy’s ticket to the show. Molly, Hattie’s closest cousin, was already coming along. This put a slight crimp in MJ’s game, since now her top two go-to babysitters were now part of our party. No problem, Grandma Punkin was up for a night of reading her book at MJ’s house while the babies slept.
I had no idea what to expect. It was Adam Lambert, so I knew there could be a lot of kids like Molly and Hattie along but it was Queen, so if a lot of original fans showed up, the crowd could be my age. The crowds swarming the arena proved to be a multi generational mix of music lovers. I’d say the median age of the crowd was late fourties; plenty of original fans brought their kids along. We were all ready to rock and rock we did.
There was no opening act, we just dived right into the musical love fest that began with We Will Rock You.
You know a band has a long list of mega hits when they start with We Will Rock You.
Over the course of the next two hours, they played all my favorites. Adam was a wonderful lead singer: he has the stage presence and the voice but he admitted up front he’s no Freddy Mercury. Well, of course not.
He was close enough.
The two original band members were front and center throughout the show. Those old guys can still rock the house. It was quite amazing. My elbows, shoulders and wrists are wrecked and I’ve never done anything as strenuous as Roger Taylor, playing those drums. The show was a total homage to Freddy. The lead guitarist, Brian May, did a duet with Freddy on the jumbo Tron that brought the house down. It was very moving. Freddy made a few more video appearances over the course of the night, always to thunderous applause.
The entire arena was on its feet through most of the show. We all knew all the words and we sang and danced the night away.
They ended on Bohemian Rhapsody.
I don’t even remember what they did for an encore but it was capped off with glitter canons and then the performers actually took a bow, as if it were a Broadway show!
A fabulous time was had by all!
And that’s why I wasn’t jealous of my kids, who saw Huey Lewis open for Jimmy Buffet in Chicago that same weekend.