Set List:
Hammer To Fall | Tie Your Mother Down | Fat Bottomed Girls |Another One Bites The Dust | I Want It All | I Want To Break Free | C-Lebrity | Surfs Up…Schools Out| Seagull | Love Of My Life | 39 | I’m In Love With My Car | A Kind Of Magic | Say Its Not True | Bad Company | We Believe | Bijou | Last Horizon | Crazy Little Thing Called Love | Radio Gaga | The Show Must Go On  | Bohemian Rhapsody

Encores:
Cosmos Rocks | All Right Now | We Will Rock You | We Are The Champions

When it was first mooted that Queen where going to reform, the immediate thought was, ‘No Way’. You just couldn’t have Queen without Freddie Mercury. Then again the same could be said of Lynyrd Skynyrd without Ronnie Van Zant, or AC/DC without Bon Scott.

So it came about a couple of years ago, that after jamming together on a couple of TV shows, Brian May and Roger Taylor announced they would tour again, with ex Free and Bad Co frontman Paul Rodgers doing the vocals. If they were going to pick someone to take over the mantle, then Mr Rodgers wasn’t a bad option. A great singer, versatile, in that I’d seen him on several occasions cover other artist’s songs brilliantly, but how would he cope singing these songs? Could he take over from Freddie?

It was because of these doubts, plus the astronomical ticket prices that I gave the first tour a miss. What a mistake!! When the DVD of the Sheffield UK performance came out later I realised I’d boobed, and decided there and then that should they ever tour again, I’d be there.

It was with great excitement I and two friends headed off to the Trent Arena Nottingham England, on an autumnal Friday afternoon. The drive was going to take about 3 hours, but after cranking up the stereo with new album “The Cosmos Rocks”, the journey passed really quickly (despite English motorway traffic).

We arrived in Nottingham around 4:30, parked up and headed for something to eat; well you have to get a lining on your stomach haven’t you? Duly fed, we then decided to look for the nearest and best (sometimes not the nearest) watering hole to the arena itself. We found The Canalhouse a quant pub, which as the name might suggest is an old warehouse building used for docking canal boats. In fact it has a canal running through the middle of it, with boats parked there as well. The only pub I have ever been to where you cross a bridge INSIDE to get to the bar!

Throat now lubricated for singing, we headed to the venue. 8:00, the lights go down and the screen behind the stage lights up with stars from the cosmos, large flashes of thunder and lightening. Enter stage left Brian May, and he hits the first riffs of ‘Hammer To Fall’ and we’re up and running. Hit followed hit, from ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ to ‘I Want To Break Free’. I would still have loved to see Mr Rodgers in a skirt and apron using a hoover at this point !!!

We were then given two songs from the new album. I have to be honest here, and I know the album has had mixed reviews, but I quite enjoyed the songs, although whether they have the ‘Queen’ sound is open to discussion.

After the two new songs, the band left the stage leaving Rodgers on his own. On the previous tours, Rodgers had been ‘allowed’, if that’s the right word to include Free and Bad Co material in the set list. On the previous tour he had chosen well known songs, such as ‘Wishing Well’ and ‘Feel like Making Love’. This time he went with perhaps the lesser known Seagull and Bad Company. A daring choice for an audience of Queen fans. He did a great job with Seagull on stage alone with just an acoustic guitar, and although a few people around me claimed never to have heard it before, the audience still gave it a rapturous ovation.

He then introduced ‘Dr Brian May’, who in the most poignant moment of the night, sat alone at the end of the long stage extension on a stool, acoustic guitar in hand, and started to sing ‘Love of my Life’. He managed to get the first line out, when the crowd simply took over and sang the whole song for him. May was then joined by Taylor and the 3 backing musicians doing a folky ‘39’, before Taylor took off into an interesting drum solo. This started with just high-hat and bass, added to every every few seconds by a new piece  until a 2^nd drum kit was formed, and he rocked into ‘I’m In Love With My Car’.

More old songs, then another from the new album ‘We Believe’ which although it had more of a Queen feel about it, I wasn’t that impressed.

Back to the hits after that one, before completing the set with the obligatory ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. This mingles live performance video of  Freddie Mercury on piano doing the opening, and the band on stage playing. Video in the middle section harmonies, and then Rodgers joining for the final rock stage of the song. Two hours of great entertainment.

Of the 4 songs played for encores, was it my imagination, or did ‘All Right Now’ have the audience rocking more than the others? I think it might just have.

So at the end of it all how did I feel about the ‘new’ format of the band? Well Rodgers will never be Freddie, I knew that already, and to be fair he does not try to be. Instead he adds a smoky blues atmosphere to the legendary Queen mix. For me, it works, and I certainly didn’t hear any complaints from the more ardent fans on the way out either.