A Night At the Opera

“I'll top the bill

I'll overkill

I have to find the will to carry on with the show

On with the show”

– Queen

The first full-fledged rock concert I ever experienced was Queen at Madison Square Garden in 1982 (1). We entered the historic venue after opening act Billy Squier had already taken the stage. Forty years later I can still remember the feeling of being hit by sound waves as the opening of "In the Dark" was played.

I was introduced to Queen through their massively popular album The Game and its hit songs "Another One Bites the Dust" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." As an instant fan, I bought a shirt and wore it to school where I was admonished by a classmate for not knowing more about their back catalog. Soon after the eight-track of their Greatest Hits was part of my collection. This was quickly replaced by a cassette as the original wore out. That did not last very long either. I was hooked.

Shortly before the show at the Garden, the band released Hot Space, the followup to The Game. This album represented a change in direction for the band that was not well received by the public. While I personally still enjoy the album, others did not agree and it is widely blamed for a drop in the band's popularity in America. Luckily, the Hot Space tour took place so early in the album cycle that it acted almost as an extension of the Game tour, allowing me to see them at what was still the height of their popularity.

The Hot Space tour dates would be Queen’s last North American shows anchored by Freddie Mercury. If diminishing record sales were not enough, the singer's unpublished AIDS diagnosis meant he would have been denied entry to the United States under Ronald Regan's draconian policies. Any hope of seeing them live again died with Mercury in 1991.

Those years were difficult to be a die-hard Queen fan in America. For part of the time, the band did not even have an American recording contract. While they were playing stadiums and festivals in other parts of the world, their back catalog was only available here in the import section of record stores.

In the year following Mercury's death, the band was thrust back into cultural relevance by the Movie “Wayne's World.” In the opening scene, characters played by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey humorously sing along and headbang to Bohemian Rhapsody resulting in the song’s reintroduction to the charts.

That same year, Metallica released their cover of "Stone Cold Crazy," reminding Metalheads that Queen was one of the forerunners to their preferred genre. While bassist John Deacon retreated from public life, Guitarist Brian May and Drummer Roger Taylor, continued to cultivate the band's place in history. After overseeing the release of the band's final studio album which combined Mercury's last recordings with reworked versions of songs from the singer's underwhelming solo albums, they entered into Queen+ collaborations. This included a world tour, live album, and new songs under the moniker of Queen + Paul Rogers. In 2001 the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins.

In 2009, Queen was a featured artist on American Idol. It was here that May and Taylor first worked with Adam Lambert, setting the stage for the next collaboration: Queen+ Adam Lambert. The latest endeavor for this relationship was another tour of North America, which ended last weekend with two sold-out shows at BMO stadium in Los Angeles.

Freddie Mercury's presence was front and center from the time the lights went down. Coming on stage to a pre-recorded version of the song "Machines" from The Works album, Mercury's voice was the first one heard by the audience. After joining the recording the band seamlessly segued into its album mate, "Radio Ga Ga." This was followed by "Hammer to Fall," which is also from the same album.

In all, five tracks were played from The Works, an album that had only reached 23 on the American Charts and never achieved platinum status in the States. "Who Wants to Live Forever," "Show Must Go On,” and "I Want It All," were also featured in the set despite being from albums that did not sell well in the United States. To hear the crowd react to these great songs from this difficult period in the band’s history was a tremendous payoff for a fan who stuck by them when it was not popular to do so. I will admit that the thought of "where were you then" did bubble to the surface occasionally.

Since Queen is one of the innovators of the rock concert as a spectacle, it is not surprising that their staging of this run through history was cutting edge. The video screens were particularly impressive, producing images that were so lifelike that I sometimes wondered if they were actual set pieces. The pyro was used to punctuate the songs, not overwhelm them.

One of the best effects of the night was the simplest. During the song "Is This the World We Created..?" a video version of a tree symbolically lost its leaves as the song progressed. This was accompanied by paper leaves falling onto the audience. In an attention to detail, the leaves were not simply brown rectangles of paper but were cut into the shape of leaves.

The band's place as one of the earliest innovators of music videos proved useful in keeping Freddie Mercury front and center in what Adam Lambert described as a "celebration" of the music he made with Queen. The images from these videos played during "It's a Kind of Magic" and "Bohemian Rhapsody." Old concert footage was also used to allow Brian May the ‘magic' of a duet with his old singer at the end of "Love of My Life" and to include the musical call and response with the audience that is an internal part of a Queen show.

As my family left after Saturday's show, my sister asked if I felt that it was still a Queen concert with only two remaining original members. My response was that the band answered the question itself by tagging the project “Queen+Adam Lambert." It is a different band, but one that could not exist without the first. As a stand-in for Mercury, Lambert makes it clear the debt he owes to the band's original singer, not only for the spot he occupies on stage but for his development as a performer in his own right.

While much was done to keep Mercury's flame alive, it did seem strange to me that original bassist John Deacon is never mentioned. If not for his appearance in the Bohemian Rhapsody video and the cartoon version of him during "It’s a Kind of Magic!” it would seem that he did not exist at all. Perhaps the famously reclusive bassist wants it that way, but it seems to diminish his massive contributions to the band.

Along the same lines, I longed for a picture of David Bowie to be flashed on stage after "Under Pressure." It would have made for a nice tribute to an integral part of the original recording. How strange it must be for Taylor to sing that song every night knowing that the other two voices have been extinguished.

As I left BMO stadium on Sunday I could not help but feel a little sadness at the thought that this could be the last time I would see my favorite band perform. This was the last date of the North American tour, but I hear a venue is opening up in Vegas after U2 completes their residency. The possibilities are endless for a band like Queen performing in a technologically advanced space like the Sphere. After a triumphant weekend by a band that was written off by the public long ago, anything seems possible.

(1) My Mom says that it was Diana Ross in Vegas, but a Vegas Showroom does not provide the proper atmosphere to be considered a proper Rock Concert. Besides, a Queen Concert at Madison Square Garden provides a much better narrative.

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Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, who serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him “a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles.” For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.