This November Bristol O2 academy had a chance to hold the last ‘Queen’ tribute concert, produced by the legendary rockers Roger Taylor and Bryan May. ‘Queen Extravaganza’ started the UK tour in September 2013 with Bristol being the last city to rock. After 12 shows in 14 days the musicians squeezed out the last drops of their energy and created a live masterpiece.
Moving the doors opening time from 7pm to 8pm several hours before the show made people irritated. However, waiting outside gave everyone an opportunity to talk to the band members, which made the concert more intimate than ever.
You could feel a slight tension in the atmosphere before the musicians started to play. It was about waiting, the willingness to know if ‘Queen Extravaganza’ justifies the name of the best Queen tribute band ever. The average age of the fans was 50, which only proved the youth’s poor interest in the 80’s music.
The stage was under the grand purple screen emblazoned with the famous golden eagle – the symbol of ‘Queen.’ Then the public heard the very first chords of ‘We Will Rock You’. The show was more than stunning. It provided everyone with the opportunity to remember Freddie Mercury’s genius, phenomenal charisma and more than professionally used voice.
The group has 6 members overall – vocalists Marc Martel and Jennifer Espinoza, lead guitarist Brian Gresh, drummer Tyler Warrer, base player Francois-Olivier Doyon and keyboard player Brandon Ethridge. All the songs were performed with the maximum amount of energy humanly possible.
“It started one and a half years ago when Roger Taylor and his team picked us as a band, putting us all together,” remembers vocalist Marc Martel, “We were absolute strangers and did not know each other. They put us in a rehearsal hall in LA for 2 days to learn ‘Somebody to Love’ for performance on American Idol with 19 million people watching on TV. I can even barely watch it on Youtube, because it is so good.”
When people heard a song, which was a spiritual bridge connecting Freddie Mercury’s soul with the real world – ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ – they became breathless. It was a classic, which hided the great power behind its lyrics. Masking the homosexual nature was extremely hard for such a timid person like Farrokh Bulsara (Freddie Mercury). He suffered because of knowing that the society will be quick to condemn and his religious family – reject. The singer wanted to show the public, how hard it is to ignore the hatred and be who you are.
Trying to compare themselves with the original band, Brandon Ethridge whispered: „They only had three backing singers. We have six. So we can do more vocals in the concert. But our voices do not sound nearly as good as they did on the records. However, we are doing our best to pay tribute to them.“
Professional vocals with perfect harmony of 6 voices and a miraculous coherence of instruments were the key elements of this show.
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