Thursday 28th (yes a school night), five of us went to see One Night of Queen, aka Gary Mullens & The Works. Venue: The Edinburgh Playhouse. It seemed appropriate, September 2006 would have seen the Freddie Mercury’s 60th birthday.

The show opened with Tie Your Mother Down (A Day At The Races), which would normally serve to demonstrate the power of the sound system. In this case, it provided an fairly acceptable warm up track. The sound system was a little under-powered, certainly for the first five songs. However, it did prove that this tribute band do actually sound very much like the masters who they are imitating. That said, after a gentle kick from Gary, the audience woke up and stood up…it certainly seemed louder at that point.

Throughout the set, we were subjected to a modicum of Freddie-isms: these boys have studied their subjects well and manage to inject a lot of the real Queen into the performance.

Under Pressure (Hot Space)
Now I’m Here (Sheer Heart Attack)
Keep Yourself Alive (Queen “1”)
One Vision (A Kind Of Magic)
Jailhouse Rock
Crazy Little Thing Called Love (The Game)
Another One Bites The Dust (The Game)
It’s a Kind of Magic (A Kind Of Magic)
Friends Will Be Friends (A Kind Of Magic)
Love Of My Life (A Night at The Opera)
Hammer to Fall (The Works)
Bohemian Rhapsody (A Night at The Opera)
Seven Seas Of Rhye (Queen “1”)
Radio Gaga (The Works)
We Will Rock You (News Of The World)
We Are The Champions (News Of The World)

Given the average age of a regular Queen fan, there was an intermission, a comfort break if you will. This was our cue to get to the bar and throw some [more] lager down our necks.

And no Queen gig would be complete without God Save The Queen. Most folks were standing for this, which was good – very few folks were singing however, which wasn’t so good.

I would certainly recommend that you go see these boys, especially if you enjoyed the original works from Queen themselves. They’re on the touring circuit, so it’s very likely that they’ll be in your neck of the woods.

—

Anyway, it would appear that my last gig prior to this one was Magnum, some three years ago. It’s time to start going to a few more gigs. Perhaps starting here, in Germany?