Evening Standard - July 12, 2012 (London, UK, HMV Hammersmith)
With singer Freddie Mercury unavailable and bassist John
Deacon uninterested, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor’s decision to
keep milking the Queen cow seemed based more on stubborn, out of touch egos
than legacy burnishing.
Not any more: not after last night’s London debut of Queen + Adam Lambert
before an audience including Bob Geldof, Channel 4’s Phil Spencer, Black
Sabbath’s Tony Iommi and Matt Lucas. For the first time since Mercury’s death
in 1991, Queen look energised.
Chastened by two patchy tours and one dismal album with uncomfortably stiff
vocalist Paul Rodgers, May, 64, and Taylor, 62, have gone for broke. Yet,
recruiting an American Idol loser young enough to be their grandson, suggested
karaoke rather than renewal. Tellingly, feeble ticket sales forced the
humiliating cancellation of 2012’s Sonisphere festival which they were
scheduled to headline.
Despite everything, even Lambert’s Jedwardian quiff, gold has been
struck. Dressed initially in leather and tinsel, Lambert understands
Queen. He embraced the ludicrousness of the ghastly We Are The Champions as
willingly as the chunky funkiness of Another One Bites The Dust and Radio Ga
Ga’s sweetness, but he also grasped that, innate daftness notwithstanding,
Queen rocked. So he threw himself into Keep Yourself Alive, the fearsome I Want
It All and a thrillingly speeded up We Will Rock You, which made an unnecessary
encore reappearance at its original pace.
Lambert sizzled, but when he left May and Taylor to fend for themselves,
the evening sagged. May may have the startled air of a man caught trying on
Germaine Greer’s hair, but his acoustic interlude was dreary and his guitar
solo interminable. A ruddy faced version of Terry Venables these days, Taylor
might have left all the singing to Lambert and his drum solo in the garage.
Still, such are the whims of men repeatedly (and correctly) described by
Lambert as “rock royalty”. If May and Taylor have an iota of common sense left,
they will sign up Lambert for the long live haul and a new
album.