Classy Classic Queen
Tuesday night I was lucky enough to see Queen performing in Milan with Adam Lambert. Queen, well what’s left of Queen, still has it and Adam Lambert brought along insane vocal and performance skills, along with something even more rare in the music industry. He’s a very classy guy. After Kanye West’s ridiculous behavior over Beck’s Grammy Sunday night, it was an absolute pleasure to see someone so young treating those who came before him with genuine respect. (Kayne and his wife are truly cut from the same cloth, two champions of the selfie-nation, utterly lacking any grace while ignorantly blustering about their own magnificence; must be exhausting to live staring at yourself in the mirror.) Adam was clearly utterly loving being on stage with the band and gave the audience his very best. Unlike Kayne, Adam has the maturity to know that respecting another person in now way diminishes you. His solo career hasn’t yet taken off to the degree that his talent suggests, hopefully this experience will help him find his own “voice” and let us enjoy him much more.
Queen played most of the classics and Adam kept the audience in the palm of his hand throughout evening. I have to say it was pretty awesome to hear an forum full of Italians belting out Queen hits for all they were worth! The opening performances had Adam seriously channeling George Michael Faith-style, which embarrassingly had me feeling like a teen groupie… economist/investor/world-traveller/Lambert groupie? Perhaps I was still suffering from jet lag. Yeah, let’s go with that. Bohemian Rhapsody was a bit of a tear-jerker duet between Adam on stage and a Freddie Mercury video on a massive screen above.
If you get the chance and are a lover of classic rock, I highly recommend seeing this tour, or the more than likely one that will follow after Queen’s next album with recently discovered Freddy Mercury tracks drops later this year. It was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Here’s “Who Wants to Live Forever” from the evening. Hear all the Italians singing along… love how music is so universal. (Oh and by the way, the show just a few days before this one was cancelled because Adam had bronchitis. Talk about a professional! Music and class makes for a great evening.)