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The '''Queen + Paul Rodgers''' collaboration began in late [[2004]] when [[Queen (band)|Queen]] were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame. Guitarist [[Brian May]] had previously performed with [[Paul Rodgers]] (formerly of [[Bad Company]], [[Free (band)|Free]], [[The Firm (band)|The Firm]] and [[The Law (band)|The Law]]) on several occasions, including at the [[Royal Albert Hall]].
The '''Queen + Paul Rodgers''' collaboration began in late [[2004]] when [[Queen (band)|Queen]] was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame. Guitarist [[Brian May]] had previously performed with [[Paul Rodgers]] (formerly of [[Bad Company]], [[Free (band)|Free]], [[The Firm (band)|The Firm]] and [[The Law (band)|The Law]]) on several occasions, including at the [[Royal Albert Hall]].
[[Roger Meddows-Taylor|Roger Taylor]], drummer of Queen, and Brian May have been active in the music industry since the death of Queen lead singer [[Freddie Mercury]] in [[1991]] and the retirement of [[bassist]] [[John Deacon]] in the late [[1990s]].
[[Roger Meddows-Taylor|Roger Taylor]], drummer of Queen, and Brian May have been active in the music industry since the death of Queen lead singer [[Freddie Mercury]] in [[1991]] and the retirement of [[bassist]] [[John Deacon]] in the late [[1990s]].


Revision as of 20:59, 27 September 2007

Queen + Paul Rodgers

The Queen + Paul Rodgers collaboration began in late 2004 when Queen was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame. Guitarist Brian May had previously performed with Paul Rodgers (formerly of Bad Company, Free, The Firm and The Law) on several occasions, including at the Royal Albert Hall. Roger Taylor, drummer of Queen, and Brian May have been active in the music industry since the death of Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury in 1991 and the retirement of bassist John Deacon in the late 1990s.

Paul Rodgers, Brian May and Roger Taylor are the principal members of the band, supplemented on tour by Queen's former touring keyboard player Spike Edney (who had also been a member of Roger Taylor's band The Cross and Brian May's line-up, where he supplied piano/keyboards and backing vocals) (and had indeed provided additional piano on Queen's A Kind of Magic album and played live with them on the subsequent Magic Tour in 1986), rhythm guitarist Jamie Moses (formerly of The Pretenders, The Hollies and the Brian May Band), and bassist Danny Miranda (formerly of Blue Öyster Cult and the Las Vegas production of the We Will Rock You musical).

Tour

The group's first public performance was at a concert in South Africa in March 2005 in support of Nelson Mandela's 46664 AIDS awareness campaign. The tour began properly with a concert at the Brixton Academy venue in London, with tickets sold primarily to members of the official Queen fan club. An arena tour of Europe followed in the spring of 2005, with dates at venues such as Wembley Arena, Cardiff International Arena and Le Zenith in France. Four outdoor stadium dates were scheduled for the first time in Portugal at Estadio do Restelo (Att: 30.000), at Rhein-Energie Stadion in Cologne, Germany (Att:27.500), Holland Arnhem Gelredome (Att:30.000) and at Hyde Park in the UK (Att:65.000) in the summer of 2005.

The Estadio do Restelo concert took place on the 2nd July 2005. The Queen + Paul Rodgers concert was planned to be one of the stages for Live 8 but only a message was sent before "'39". Two songs were dedicated to Live 8 - "Say It's Not True", a song by Roger Taylor for 46664 Nelson Mandela fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa and was introduced by Roger in Lisbon: "This is a song from Nelson Mandela and for HIV/AIDS Africa, especially today on Live 8 day. This is a song to Lisbon." After this song Brian May dedicated "'39" to Bob Geldof and introduced the song "Olá Lisboa! I would like to make a salute to all our comrades and friends who are doing such a wonderful job and trying that children through out the world are no longer hungry, let's make a big noise for Bob Geldof and Live 8". The Hyde Park concert took place on the 15th July 2005. The band and management gave away thousands of free tickets to emergency services people for helping in the aftermath of the July 7th London bombings which caused the concert to be postponed by a week. British comedian Peter Kay, who had also appeared during the encore at their Manchester gig in May of that year, warmed the crowd up, with the band Razorlight serving as the support act. The concert was attended by some 65,000 people and Queen + Paul Rodgers performed for over 2 hours.

A typical set list mainly focused on Queen's best-known hits, with songs such as "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", "We Will Rock You", "We Are the Champions" and "Bohemian Rhapsody". In an interview that was published in the San Jose Mercury News, Paul Rodgers stated that the one song they would not be able play while on tour is "Killer Queen" due to the fact that: "the melodies are just too on the spot." The typical set also included some songs from the back catalogues of Free and Bad Company, such as "All Right Now", "Wishing Well", "Feel Like Making Love", and "Bad Company". Brian May and Roger Taylor sang lead on some songs. May: "Hammer to Fall" (the first part only), "Love of My Life", "'39" (which he sang lead on the studio version originally). Taylor: "Radio Ga Ga" (Both verses and first two choruses), "These Are the Days of Our Lives", "Say It's Not True" (a new song) and "I'm in Love with My Car" (which he sang lead on the studio version originally as well). He would often leave the drum kit (the exception being "I'm in Love with My Car") while a drum machine played on "Radio Ga Ga" and "These Are the Days of Our Lives". For "Say It's Not True", he would be accompanied by auxiliary band members Danny Miranda and Jamie Moses who both played acoustic guitars (except for the 46664 concert, in which Roger was accompanied by Brian and Jamie - which was the only time Brian played guitar on this song during the tour).

In addition to well known favourites and hits, there were a number of occasional 'surprise' additions to the setlist, including: "I Was Born to Love You" (Japan only), "Imagine" (John Lennon cover, Hyde Park only), "Teo Torriatte" (Japan only), "Too Much Love Will Kill You" (feat. Katie Melua, South Africa only), '"Long Away" (selected shows only), "Tavaszi Szel" (Budapest only) and "Let There Be Drums" (Sandy Nelson cover performed at most gigs). "Sunshine of Your Love" was played in Newcastle as testament to the Cream reunion gig in London going on at the same time (3rd May). Brian May was present at that show the night before, which possibly inspired him to do it (2nd May). The band also added "Dragon Attack" to a number of shows on the 2006 North American tour.

Queen + Paul Rodgers followed the European tour with a series of performances in the fall of 2005, in such diverse locations as Aruba, Japan and the United States of America. Slash, former lead guitarist of the band Guns N' Roses and currently of Velvet Revolver, joined the band onstage for "Can't Get Enough" during their show at the legendary Hollywood Bowl, the second of their two-show trial run in North America (22nd October 2005).

In the winter/spring of 2006, Queen + Paul Rodgers played a 23-date tour of North America. The tour started in Miami (first Florida date since 1978, first USA shows since 1982) and ended with a sold-out performance in Vancouver, Canada (where they also, among other surprises that occurred during the show, covered the Jimi Hendrix song "Red House" - the only performance of this song on the tour).

The future

On the August 15, 2006, Brian May confirmed rumours that Queen + Paul Rodgers will be entering the recording studio, due to start in October 2006, without commenting on whether this would be for the purposes of an album or not.[1]

On the October 23, 2006, Brian May confirmed that Queen + Paul Rodgers were working in the recording studio on new material towards a Queen + Paul Rodgers album. [2][3][4]

On the November 14, 2006, Roger Taylor, in an interview with Mark Ratcliffe on BBC Radio 2, was asked about recording new material with Paul Rodgers. He said that they were indeed in the studio and everything was going well and a new album was in the pipeline. He went on to say however that it would be some months before they toured again, as they didn't want to go on tour without some new material, so as not to be called "revivalists". [5]

"Take Love" was one of the new collaborations the new band played on tour. There was a common misconception that "Reachin' Out" (performed at the start of gigs) was also a new song, however, this was in fact a shortened version of a song performed by Brian May, Paul Rodgers and Rock Therapy back in 1996.[6]

A video of the original song can be seen here.

According to the band's lighting engineer at a concert in Atlanta, Georgia on 13 April 2006, the group will tour again in early 2008. [7]

Roger Taylor stated in a letter to the Official International Queen Fan Club that he was enjoying the "new album", and that he hopes to tour it in the winter of 2007. [8]

Media releases

Queen + Paul Rodgers have released a CD called Return of the Champions and a DVD of the same name. Both featured live recordings from their Sheffield Hallam FM Arena concert on 9 May 2005. The DVD features "Imagine" from Hyde Park.

Queen + Paul Rodgers have also released a single featuring "Reaching Out"/"Tie Your Mother Down"/"Fat Bottomed Girls".

An American promo featuring two tracks taken from the Italian leg of the European tour was available with some copies of Return of the Champions.

Soundboard recordings exist of all European shows (except those in Ireland and Sweden). Sheffield, Lisbon, Hyde Park and perhaps Budapest were professionally filmed. The Tokyo, Japan show on October 26, 2005 was also professionally filmed and televised, and later released on DVD exclusively in Japan in April 2006, entitled "Super Live in Japan", the only release not to feature any overdubs or studio fixes. Many soundboard recordings of tracks were released for download on the Queen official website, with blank Q+PR CD-Rs to burn these tracks available for purchase.

Also there are many bootlegs from nearly every show of the 2005/2006 tour in audio, and some video.

Discography

External links

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