The story appears on

Page A13

September 23, 2016

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » Feature » Events and TV

At long last, Queen to rock Shanghai

LEGENDARY rock band Queen just finished their first live performance in Israel; and next week they are coming to Shanghai, also a first for the band.

“Met a Man in China. Went down to Geisha Minah,” the band sang in 1974 in their first international hit “Killer Queen,” before going on to tour Japan. While in Asia though, they never made it to China.

The wish to play on China’s mainland was mentioned in several interviews with late frontman Freddie Mercury. The band’s guitarist Brian May, who’s also an astrophysicist, visited China for solar eclipse in 1997, and later wrote a song “China Belle” for his solo album.

“I’m thrilled that we can go and actually do what we’ll do in China. It’s an incredible opportunity,” May said in an email interview.

“We certainly discussed it in the old days, and it’s something out of the blue to realize now that we can do this. We’ll give it all we’ve got. We are starting rehearsals as we speak, and we’re up for giving you guys the best show you’ve even seen in your lives.”

Celebrating its 46th anniversary, the band has started a tour across Europe and Asia, visiting historic sites they played decades ago and also embarking on new journeys with “American Idol” Adam Lambert. The collaboration with the young vocalist started in 2011.

“A lot of the time it feels like Queen in the old days, but obviously he is not Freddie. He is himself and he has his own personality, which is great, very funny sometimes,” said Roger Taylor, the band’s drummer.

“But it’s his voice that’s so extraordinarily good. He can sing all the notes, all those big Freddie notes and there are songs like ‘Who Wants to Live Forever’ that when he sings I see people crying, hopefully because it moves them emotionally. So he sits in really well and I think the shows stand up to the shows that we used to do in the old years.”

The tour kicked out on May 20 in Lisbon. The group will play in Hong Kong and Bangkok after Shanghai. Though the band has never played a note on China’s mainland, their songs have graced reality shows, movies and even popular Chinese soap operas, garnering fans of all ages.

“[Audiences today] are just better and better,” said Taylor. “I think it’s important to have that mixture of ages, as I’ve said before. Young people are, maybe more excitable, older people may want to sit and be more comfortable, so we get all the young people in the front maybe, this makes for a more exciting evening general. It’s great to be touring again, Brain and I are really enjoying it. “

 

Date: September 26

Tel: 4006-1037-21

Tickets: 380-1,680 yuan

Venue: Mercedes-Benz Arena

Address: 1200 Century Avenue




 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend