| Queen + Paul
Rodgers |
| Background information |
| Origin |
England |
| Genre(s) |
Arena rock
Hard
rock
Progressive rock
Pop
rock |
| Years active |
2004 – present |
| Members |
Brian
May (Queen)
Roger Taylor (Queen)
Paul Rodgers
Additional musicians:
Spike
Edney
Danny Miranda
Jamie
Moses |
The Queen + Paul Rodgers collaboration
began in late 2004
when Queen were 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).
|
Contents
- 1 Tour
- 2 The
future
- 3 Media
releases
- 4 Discography
- 5 External
links
|
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
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 backing track partly 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
- Live In Italy
Promo CD Single 2005 (Italy) (featuring Seagull and
Fat Bottomed Girls from two dates in Italy)
- Fat Bottomed Girls
/ Reaching Out+Tie
Your Mother Down CD &
Online Download Single (CD Single in Europe only) (from the same
Sheffield concert as Return of the Champions)
- Return of the Champions
- CD/DVD, 2005
- Bohemian Rhapsody (Live At Hyde
Park) Online Download Single
- Super Live in Japan
- DVD, 2006 (Japan)
External links
| v • d • e Queen |
| Freddie Mercury • Brian
May • Roger Taylor • John
Deacon |
| Discography |
| Studio albums: Queen
• Queen
II • Sheer
Heart Attack • A Night at the
Opera • A Day at the Races
• News of the World
• Jazz • The
Game • Flash
Gordon • Hot Space
• The Works
• A Kind of Magic
• The Miracle
• Innuendo • Made
in Heaven |
| Live albums: Live
Killers • Live Magic
• Live at Wembley '86
• Queen on Fire -
Live at the Bowl • Return of the Champions |
| Compilation albums: Greatest Hits
• At the Beeb • Greatest Hits II
• Classic Queen
• Queen Rocks • Greatest Hits III
• Stone Cold Classics
• The A-Z of Queen, Volume 1 |
| Videography |
| We Will Rock You
• The Freddie
Mercury Tribute Concert • Greatest
Video Hits 1 • Live at Wembley Stadium
• Greatest Video Hits 2
• We Are the
Champions: Final Live in Japan • Queen on Fire -
Live at the Bowl • Return of the Champions
• Super Live in Japan |
| Tours |
| Queen I Tour • Queen II
Tour • Sheer Heart Attack Tour • A
Night at the Opera Tour • A Day at the Races Tour
• News of the World Tour • Jazz Tour
• Crazy
Tour • The Game Tour • Hot
Space Tour • The Works Tour
• Magic
Tour • Queen + Paul Rodgers Tour |
| Multimedia |
| Queen: The eYe |
| Related
Articles |
| Ibex • Larry
Lurex • Smile
• The
Cross • Queen + Paul
Rodgers • We Will Rock You
(musical) • Deacy
Amp • Red
Special • The
Official International Queen Fan Club • Live performances • Songs |
