PAYING TRIBUTE
CT stages celebrate icons Freddie Mercury and Gloria Estefan in March
Other than being musical icons, Gloria Estefan and Freddie Mercury don’t have much in common, except that Connecticut stages will be paying tribute to both artists in March.
Estefan’s Broadway show “Get On Your Feet” will be staged at The Shubert from March 23-26. It’s a tried-and-true jukebox musical, based on the lives of Gloria and her husband Emilio Estefan, a union that resulted in 26 Grammy Award wins. All of the hits are present and accounted for, from the titular hit to “Turn The Beat Around,” “Conga,” “Coming Out of the Dark,” “Don’t Wanna Lose You” and more.
As for Mercury, Killer Queen will be paying tribute to the all things Queen at the Toyota Oakdale Theater on March 9. Named after one of the group’s most popular songs Killer Queen has been at it for so long that lead singer Patrick Myers said it was before there even were tribute bands. Myers said the band was formed in 1991 around the time of Mercury’s death.
“There weren’t tributes at the time. I had to work a lot on my voice when I realized how much was involved,” he said. “So initially we sort of took things down to the keys we could manage. I gradually built my voice up. I got some training, had some wonderful vocal coaches, pitstops along the way. But back then I was just finding my way through things.”
In short, Killer Queen was the first Queen tribute band and as such is the longest-established one worldwide. Eventually, Killer Queen began selling out the very venues their rock ‘n roll heroes had sold out, and knew they were on to something. And, yes, all of the pageantry is in tow, along with the costume changes, from “King Freddie” for tracks like “We Will Rock You” and “Flash” to the mustachioed, leather-clad one on “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”.
But Killer Queen’s bandmates aren’t only about the hits.
“They had a very, very wide reach musically,” he said. “That’s what’s so fascinating about them. That’s why they’re sort of timeless. You can’t pin them down.”