Killer Queen concert keeps band’s music alive

The Queen Extravaganza, St David’s Hall, Cardiff

BILLED AS the Queen’s Greatest Hits tour, this run of dates by the ‘official’ tribute band created by Roger Taylor and Brian May, is without doubt one of the best timed tours EVER!

Hot on the heels of the recently released Bohemian Rhapsody film, this concert allows everyone to relive the music of Queen.

The show at St David’s Hall sold out months ago and with the UK currently in the midst of Queen Fever, we waited with bated breath for the band.

Bouncing on stage to the sound of the band’s One Vision, the tribute was more than I expected. Over the last few years I have seen a few Queen tributes and while some are good, other great, this was a first for me in that they just played the music without the clothes gimmick that most of the others go for.

Not taking anything away from those that do - here it was just the music doing the talking. As most fans know there will never be another Freddie Mercury, so why try to replicate him.

Thankfully what Roger and Brian have created here is a ‘tribute’ to the music and it is all the better for it. The quality from the current members of the Queen Extravaganza is of such a high level you can only imagine that this is the nearest thing you will hear to the real thing.

With the band keeping the Queen train alive and kicking while the current band of Roger, Brian and Adam Lambert are not on tour themselves is a genius way to keep the music in the minds of all their fans, not that they need any help with that.

All the hits and more were there, with the likes of Don’t Stop Me Now, Killer Queen, Bicycle Race, Fat Bottomed Girls, A Kind of Magic, I Want It All, Hammer To Fall, Under Pressure, Another One Bites The Dust, These Are The Days Of Our Lives, The Show Must Go On, and of course Bohemian Rhapsody, not forgetting Radio Ga-Ga, We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions.

Of course there were other songs I would have loved to have heard, but they did the band’s legacy proud

■ David Prince