Talk about living out your rock star fantasies.
Adam Lambert grew up adoring Queen, sang their songs at his “American Idol” audition — and now he’s doing it for real. But his dream felt more like a nightmare on Thursday night when the Queen + Adam Lambert tour hit Madison Square Garden. By trying to fill in for Freddie Mercury, he has drunk from a poisoned chalice, and it was painful watching him slowly succumb.
Lambert’s vocals have never been in question, but compared to Mercury’s booming, full-bodied range that could fill stadiums on its own, the 32-year-old’s squeaky warbling on songs such as “Somebody To Love” and “Another One Bites The Dust” sounded like farts in the wind. When footage of Mercury singing was shown on the giant screen behind the stage, it only served to put Lambert in even more shade.
His showmanship was also a pale imitation of the original Queen singer, especially during “Killer Queen,” when he draped himself over a chaise lounge like a camp cartoon character. Even Lambert’s costumes were off-point, not least the studded leather jacket he wore as he arrived on stage, which looked like a fashion intern’s idea of rock star clobber.
But it would be unfair to lay the blame for all of this completely at Lambert’s door. He’s just a jobbing performer who is smart enough to know he’ll never even come close to Mercury’s level of charisma or talent. The real villains are guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor for letting this happen. Again.
The duo first reanimated the band with Free and Bad Company singer Paul Rodgers during the 2000s (original Queen bassist John Deacon smartly retired years ago). Now they’re continuing to desecrate their own wonderful legacies by limping through this pantomime. May is a guitar hero, but hearing him going through a five-minute solo was enough to bore you to tears, and the sound of Taylor taking up the microphone and croaking through a version of “These Are The Days Of Our Lives” verged on the pitiful.
Given that Queen’s career album sales are in the hundreds of millions, neither May nor Taylor can possibly need the money that this tour is bringing in. So why bother? The answer was hinted at during a mid-set acoustic segment, when a genuinely moved May addressed Queen’s ever-loyal subjects.
“After all these years, you gave us the chance to come here and be rock gods again,” he said with more than a hint of relief.
They worked hard to earn the rock star life, but it sounds like May and Taylor don’t quite have it in them to leave it behind. For them, the show must go on, if only because it’s all they know.