Show Review: Almost Queen, 7/1/11
Until the fall of my senior year of high school, I knew as much about Queen as just about everyone else in my high school: They did the song in the car in Wayne’s World, “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions,” not least from The Mighty Ducks, and their lead singer passed away when we were kids.
A friend of mine dug further. His parents had the maroon Greatest Hits compilation as well as the navy blue Classic Queen collection. So he commandeered those and listened to them and even before getting really into Queen’s regular output, he knew there was a lot to these guys, a heck of a range, a hell of a vocal range, and enough talent to merit an even deeper look.
One thing led to another, as things do, and my friend and my girlfriend at the time and a few other people went to the Downtown, in Farmingdale (site of that Tonic show the very same summer) to see what we’d otherwise likely never see in our lives: a group that was Almost Queen.
Opening for Almost Queen that night nine years ago was Mammoth, a Van Halen tribute band. Opening for Almost Queen in July of 2011 at the Jones Beach Boardwalk Bandshell was Toxin – not, believe it or not, a Poison tribute band. A Long Island band with a hair metal sound that predates their own births, they tried a little too hard to get the audience out of their seats at first – these hard-working folks lugged those beach chairs all the way from their cars, so they’ll be damned if some kid’s gonna tell them to stand up. But the resistance faded somewhat, and they outperformed all expectations. I applauded the specificity of their niche and overlooked the Poison confusion and once I remembered that spectacle would be a big part of the evening, even I enjoyed them, because they were good.
Toxin
And then, out came Almost Queen. They looked passably like the originals, John the least, probably, then Roger, then Brian (even though he had a Brian May-style guitar of which I was and remain envious). Freddie looked like early-80s Freddie (that short description makes him sound like an action figure): slick hair, sunglasses, pushbroom mustache, white t-shirt under a (removable!) leather jacket. When it comes to the tribute bands who dress like their counterparts, Queen is a tough one: Theirs is an image easy to imitate but similarly easy to half-ass. Combined with the musicality, it’s a precarious thing to pull off, but these guys wouldn’t still be around and touring if it was terrible. With the high risk came the high reward, and a wonderfully entertaining evening.
The highlights of the evening were many. The hits were all there, and my favorites of those were “Killer Queen,” “Fat Bottomed Girls” (including the incredible drum fill), and pre-encore set closer “Somebody to Love,” which was fueled by a thrilled audience and more than a little beer, at least in our row of the bleachers. “Dragon Attack” is a bass-heavy song I was surprised to hear, and surprised to hear sound so good. It was a savvy, accomplished addition to a compilation of many much more famous songs.
I have to devote a separate paragraph to the evening’s most special surprise for me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when the opening guitar strums signaled in “It’s Late,” one of my most favorite songs ever by anyone ever, “definitive” in a way that defies enumeration, multiplied by the summery wistfulness of the window-fogging variety. For a guy who’s maybe too often and deeply touched by the nostalgia of it all, this was a singular shock. So much of memory is stored in some dusty corner of the brain. Not this time, embedded firmly and no longer secretly between the pit of my stomach and the center of my heart. The purity of the moment dissipated somewhat as I heard that they abridged the song nearly beyond recognition, excising the solo and the ensuing explosion, but almost apologetically they explained it was a request, probably quickly learned. No problem.
The evening would be special for the band and the rest of the audience as well. As an encore, they had decided to play Queen’s set from Live Aid, the performance often hailed as the best of all time. I think it was Faux John who had set the whole thing up, who had wanted to play that particular set, and it was a fantastic idea well articulated. That part of the performance began, as at Live Aid, with a police officer voicing a noise complaint from a nearby town. Then the band started “Bohemian Rhapsody,” moving on to the next right before the operatic middle section. As they played through and finished up with “We Are The Champions,” we had all been singing along the whole time, the concert experience being closer to an arms-on-shoulders pub singalong than any I’ve ever seen, probably, with me singing along to words I thought I’d long forgotten, and nearly every one of those.
Finally, as yet another extra treat, Almost Queen finished what they started. As explained onstage, something was missing: They then finished off “Bohemian Rhapsody,” through the riff and straight through to the blast of the gong that had yet to be touched all evening. A perfect end to a tremendous night at the beach.
SETLIST
1. Tie Your Mother Down
2. Stone Cold Crazy
3. Don’t Stop Me Now
4. You’re My Best Friend
5. I Want to Break Free
6. Dragon Attack
7. Save Me
8. It’s Late [abridged]
9. Tenement Funster
10. Fat Bottomed Girls
11. Killer Queen
12. Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy
13. Need Your Loving Tonight
14. Bicycle Race
15. Another One Bites the Dust
16. Under Pressure
17. Somebody to Love
Live Aid
18. Bohemian Rhapsody [beginning]
19. Radio Ga Ga
[Dayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy-o etc]
20. Hammer to Fall
21. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
22. We Will Rock You
23. We Are The Champions
“Encore”
24. Bohemian Rhapsody [middle & end]
