The Concert for Life Chapters 5 - 9 The continuing review of The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert

Recently I transferred old VHS tapes of this concert to DVD. Thought I would watch and blog at the same time. The review continues......

Chapter 5
Spinal Tap
The Majesty of Rock

A rolling red carpet. A sense of import. Who's that? Why, it's Bob Geldof. Looking all Geldof-y, with his flower print jacket and his sunglasses. Is he a "sir" yet? I can't remember.

Nigel Tufnel is wearing some sort of weird green Spiderman spandex jumpsuit. Why?I don't know. Is it funny? I guess. By '92 I feel like Tap had worn out the joke. A brilliant joke, but, ten years old.
This is really the first time the show shows signs that it could suck. Spinal Tap is fabulously appropriate inasmuch as Freddie and Queen never really took themselves too seriously. Emo was not on this band's hit parade. They wrote songs that were fun to sing, theatrical and pompous to the point of ridicule. And "The Majesty of Rock" is a great tune for Tap to do at this venue, but, they aren’t a real band, they're a joke. The drummer comes in at the wrong time, the musicianship is mediocre for much of it. But it’s a joke. Okay. I get it. Ha ha ha ha. A laugh. It’s the Majesty of Rock.

When I was in college I read, it must have been in The Village Voice, that Spinal Tap was going to play CBGB’s. My dorm was about 6 blocks or so away. And I went. Alone. I don't know why. I had a tendency to do that. Movies are fun that way as well. Alone on a Wednesday afternoon.....good times. (Actually, as John notes, I wasn't alone. I went with my roommate. With a memory like mine, I'm not sure how much of this blog should really be trusted........he he he) In a crowded CBGB, packed about halfway to the front, like lemmings, I remember that we chanted “Tap Tap Tap!” Now, this could be true or it could be fabricated memory. And then they came out, played for about 20 minutes and it was over. And I think not a few of us complained. Had it not been SPINAL TAP I would have probably forgotten that I had ever seen them. Unmemorable. Save for the novelty. But I do get to say I saw Spinal Tap live and people seem impressed.

Chapter 6
Queen & Joe Elliot & Slash

Tie Your Mother Down

Brian actually starts singing this one. Why not, he wrote it. And he gets to use the opportunity to prove why he wasn’t the lead singer of this rock band. His thin, almost reedy voice sounds like Lindsay Buckingham without confidence. But he did compose “Tie Your Mother Down” (which the band made sure we knew was “sheer bloody poetry” according to the Times as written in the liners for "A Day at the Races") so, it’s fitting that he should sing at some point.

This is the part of the show where they started flip flopping between Queen and the opening acts. Fucking MTV.

Ffor the second verse Joe Elliot comes out, joined by Slash and they really rip it up. If Joe Elliot and Leppard went to school on Queen and arena rock, the students had definitely become masters.
And Slash. Good old Slashy. Ex-punk rocker, hair in the face, Shirtless, with a body that suggests that he works out, but that he drinks just enough to start getting pudgy, ciggy dangling from his mouth, he is the epitome of rock star. I miss G nR.

Chapter 7
Roger Daltrey
I Want it All

Okay, so when did Tommy Iommi show up? Suddenly he's there. Looking bored. Looking like some session guy who showed up to complement Brian's guitar playing. Like a biker in a gay bar showed up, popped some barbituates and startedplaying.

And why do this song? The great thing about Queen was the way they were so seasoned by playing so many concerts. But this song was from “The Miracle”. And the band pretty much thought Freddie was gonna die by the time this came out. They didn't tour this number.

Okay, I digress. It’s not my favorite song but The Miracle was a big hit in England in 1988-89. I think it sold 8 copies here. Side note about The Miracle: Even though it sold so incredibly poorly here, it had some 5 or so top 5 hits in England. It was a monster of sorts. But that doesn't mean you should ever listen to it, let alone buy it. Cause it kinda sucks. A lot.

Okay back to the show.
By 1992 Roger Daltrey was a shadow of the singer he might have been with The Who. By 1992 The Who had ceased to matter, not just because the drummer drank himself to a vomitous death. But, because, really, after Tommy, did The Who matter? Who can remember "Quadrophenia"? Anyone? Bueller? What we DO remember about Quadrophenia is that Sting was in the movie. And that's about it. And Pete Townshend's solo album "All the Best Cowboys have Chinese Eyes" had 2 good songs, tops. I always thought Daltrey was more attitude and pomp than voice. Here is a guy with no rhythm, no real tone to his voice, and when he tries to belt………oy……Randy Jackson would have been all “it wasn’t even a’ight for me.” Hell, I don’t think Paula Abdul could have found something nice to say about Daltrey’s voice. But he can swing a mike. And, as a singer, lemme tell ya, that tape is there for a reason.

And is that? Why yes, it is…..Samantha Fox in the background singing backups.

But this is a track you are just happy when it’s over. Even Tommy looks bored.

Chapter 8
Def Leppard
Now I’m Here

Oh, yeah, okay, MTV, got it, it’s the afternoon again.

Hey, Joe Elliot, how do you sing and chew gum at the same time? All while wearing ripped up jeans and sporting some wildly teased bleached blond tresses. That's a star.

And this is a classic Queen song. From “Sheer Heart Attack”, this is a song you could have only known if you were a Queen fan.
Here’s what Leppard knew that Extreme didn’t: To do a Queen song you have to, HAVE TO, do a song that sounds like it could be dropped into your own set. Leppard could have covered “Now I’m Here” and it would have been a radio hit. And they did with a one armed drummer. Genius.
Side note: I saw Ozzy Osbourne at the Bangor State Fair in 1980 (or 81) for his Blizzard of Ozz tour. Peter Daher and I got there about 7 hours early and we ended up 1 person from the front of the stage. This was my first real concert.
Def Leppard opened for Ozzy and they were fantastic. I had no idea who they were, and I never bought a Leppard album, but they were great.
And here they were, 10 years later, one of the biggest bands in the world, playing an epic anthem with Brian May to one of the biggest audiences in the world and rocking the house like they do it every day.

Chapter 9
Queen + Gary Cherone
Hammer to Fall

The lucky boy who got invited to the dance. Tapping his saddle shoes, crouching every chance he can, wiggling his ass in those zoot suit slacks, and growling out the Queen Classic from “The Works”, Cherone is like a stripper who gets invited to the prom. She doesn’t mean to ruin the night, but she only knows how to dance one way.
But, he can move. How did he not end up in “FX”?

The Works was a sad album. It is only mildly better than the follow up, "A Kind of Magic", which sucked. "The Works" sounded like what I imagine it was: leftover songs from the Queen catalog.
Hey, I loved Queen. I could listen to them every day. Last year I programmed my iPod to play every single Queen album from beginning to end, in order, and I would do it again. And, yes, even “Made in Heaven”.
But, The Works just felt like crap. It contained Roger Taylor’s first big hit and right there it was obvious what Queen was all about, selling, baby. So, he wrote “Radio Ca Ca”, in his inimitably cynical style. (Have you ever heard “Fun in Space”, the first Roger Taylor solo albums? It’s quirky, snarky and great. Completely unlike his follow up, “Strange Frontiers”, which was all but unlistenable) And he changed the name of the song and the entire concept from an anti radio blast to “Radio Ga Ga”. Like Radio is still in it’s infancy. Ha! Couldn’t have been more wrong. (I do like Electric Six’s cover of the song on their new release, “Senor Smoke”)
Then there’s that song, “Keep Passing the Open Windows”, which is a phrase out of John Irving’s novel, “The Hotel New Hampshire”. Was Queen originally hired to write songs for that movie? Yes. Were they rejected? Apparently. Did some of them end up on “The Works? Obviously. Does it suck? Hard.
And there’s, “Man on the Prowl” with Freddie obviously thinking, “Well, rockabilly worked once, let’s try it again”, but with Fred Mandel on piano and the song being just, well, tired, it feels like everything else on The Works.
But, that’s what made Queen cool in a way. They signed a new deal switching from Elektra to Capitol. They tossed in a bunch of leftovers. Called it “The Works”, slapped a new wave-y picture on the cover, got paid and never had another hit in the states. A 'new" hit, that is.
Leaving fans like myself up for ridicule, we wouldn’t be vindicated until “Wayne’s World” put Bohemian Rhapsody back on the charts and the Olympics in Spain used Freddie’s Operatic Anthem, “Barcelona” as the title song.
And, with that, suddenly everyone was a Queen fan.
It’s weird to be in the mainstream. Maybe everyone is an Adam Ant fan too now.