 Queen The legendary concerts in rock history: The Beatles at Shea Stadium, the Dylan "Royal Albert Hall" show, the Who at Leeds, Queen at Wembley. Amazing, career-defining performances from some of the biggest names in music. Were these fascinating moments in time? Hell yes. Do I want to listen to them on CD? Not really. Great live shows don't always make for great listening, unless you're a huge enough fan that every moment means something to you. I consider myself a fairly dedicated Queen fan, although admittedly I like much of their output more in theory than practice. The Live At Wembley set, for me, is first and foremost an awesome track listing, and secondarily a good CD. Truly, the band was in its live prime, playing for one of the biggest audiences ever, and they pull out all the stops with a really grandiose performance. The energy does translate pretty well, but you really do have to be a pretty serious fan to truly dig the whole two hours. A few too many 80s-era songs, a few too many great surprises squandered, a few too many classics done just a bit less than terrifically. "Seven Seas of Rhye" starts out like a revelation but is torn through in barely over a minute; "Another One Bites the Dust" and "Under Pressure" are kinda by-the-numbers. The most potentially awesome portion of the show is a series of oldies done acoustically ("Baby I Don't Care," "Hello Mary Lou," "Tutti Frutti," "Gimme Some Lovin'") that ends up coming off kinda lame. All that said, there are some definite standouts: a truly passionate "Who Wants to Live Forever," a beautiful guitar version of "Love of My Life" (which unfortunately the crowd sings most of, though they sing it surprisingly well), an appropriately enormous "Radio Ga-Ga," and the always welcome "We Are the Champions." Nothing on here could be called bad, but it's an exhausting journey for the less than diehard fan. Live albums already have a great burden of proof just for being live albums; live albums from the 80s even more so. This is a pretty good example of both, and for a legendary show, it does sort of live up to the hype. But there's no particular magic here, just a solid rock performance with lots of sweat, some feedback, so me top-heavy harmonies, lots of passion, and an adoring crowd lapping the whole thing up. A magnificent document, to be sure, though not the most solid album of all time.
Review by Federica Frixenet |