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Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-05-19
The Return Of The Queen
Oh that was a terrible Lord Of The Rings pun wasn't it? Besides they weren't "The Queen" at all! Just plain old Queen. But it does maybe describe the idea of Queen returning to something. In this case, public popularity.
I know that Live At Wembley is arguably Queens most popular show, but if I may say so (and it's my review so I can) I don't think that this is Queens greatest ever live show.
What some may not realise is that in the 1970s Queen weren't a stadium rock band at all (if you exclude Hyde Park).They played small to medium mainly indoor venues and managed to connect with the audience in a way that few, if any, bands have achieved before or since. Here though, it's stadium rock all the way. Well that kind of goes with the territory! Queen were somewhat different when it came to studio performances and live shows; in the studio they were usually perfectionists, with a crafstmanship like dedication to songs (in fact that came as something of a criticism from those who liked it rawer and more spontaneous) On stage they proverbially let their hair down, here it was all about giving the crowd 2 hours of entertainment, mainly heavy rock.
I was 16 when they first showed this on TV, and there was a lot of interest around the band at the time. The reason mainly being Live Aid. With that one event Queen went from being rock dinosaurs that were totally unfashionable among the school crowd to the freshest force in rock for a long time. (At least in the UK, can't speak for other places) The release of Highlander and a slew of some good songs further increased the publics anticipation. (Come on, everyone was really hoping for 2 hours of Queen at Live AId here!) And this is undeniably a good show, both musically and that indefinable "event atmopshere". But I don't think that this is the live peak of Queen. By this time they had turned into basically hard rock fast food. Ouch, that sounds harsh doesn't it? But this is a long way from the creativity of the pre 1977 albums, and they perform the songs with a kind of complacency that befits 40 year olds playing to an adoring audience. They're not trying to win anyone over skeptics here, it's largely a workmanlike performance. They know they're good, they know the audience know they're good, they know....okay, you get the idea. The crowd came with high expectations, they duly delivered, everyone goes home satisfied. Many of the older songs are just dashed off with a kind of "Oh well,the crowd want to hear this,so I suppose we'd better play it" The plaintiff ballad part of Bohemian Rhapsody is reduced to Mercury going "Mama. Just killed a man. Put a gun against his head. Pulled my trigger now he's dead." with a smile towards the audience. We Are The Champions suffers from a similar lack of musical passion. Apart from that Freddie Mercury's voice is a bit hit and miss here; he was a heavy smoker at the time,and the rigours of touring and just old wear and tear through age have reduced his sharpness somewhat. Often he sings well here, but make no mistake he sang better than this even in the early 1980s.
Criticism over. There are actually a lot of good perfromances here. Highlights are the more rocking version Kind Of Magic, quite different from the slightly eerie stuido version, a great version of Under Pressure, a great 50s Rock And Roll medley, and a really rousing version of In The Lap Of The Gods (if only they could have shown this kind of emotion of their other early songs!) Good also to hear their early hit Seven Seas Of Rhye make an appearance. And naturally Tie Your Mother Down sounds great, but how can you mess up that one? It's the closest thing to the perfect rock and roll song you can get.
On a somewhat sadder note, Freddie Mercury knew he had AIDS at this time. He actually managed longer that he thought (he though he wouldn't make it past 1989) So when you see the man strutting around the stage, you see him with his "the show must go on" attitude. He knew this would be his last tour, so this concert has an added poignancy to it.
In summary I think that Live At Wembley is a good DVD of live music and worth buying. There is a good mixture of hardness to quieter songs (or light and shade as John Deacon remarked) Few people want to go to a show and get 2 hours of acoustic or piano ballads, but at the same time the band do slow it down on occasion for musical diversity. It starts off loudly and fiercely, they slow it down for a bit and throw in some acoustic songs, then they build to a climax. Just like every other Queenc concert since 1971 in fact. Although essentially hard rock, Queen were a band that managed to appeal to a wide variety of audiences. BUT....Queen did batter live performances than this. This pales in comparison to their classic Hammersmith Odeon 1975 show, or The Rainbow 1974, or Earls Court 1977,or....you get the idea. Even their shows at Milton Keynes 1982 or Montreal 1982 were arguably better than this. As a comparison which you may or may not relate to ,this is like Jimi Hendrix at The Isle Of Wight compared to Monterey, or The Who's Last comapred to Live At Leeds. If you think this show is good you should do yourself a favour and try to hear some of their earlier concerts. Rating: 
Date: 2008-05-15
great concert collection
amazing video, one of queen's greatest concerts. video clarity is amazing, a must buy dvd Rating:
Date: 2008-05-08
Queen, Live at Wembly on DVD
Absolutely the best concert EVER!!!!!!!!! Queen just blows me away everytime I see this. A real steal for the money. I just feel sorry for my neighbors everytime I play this because I blast it on my surround sound everytime I watch it. I even bought one for my grand kids so they could see what GOOD music really is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rating:
Date: 2008-04-12
Ultimate Queen Concert
Awesome sound and video. Freddie Mercury has proven why he and Queen were the best. Freddie is such a showman that you cannot take your eyes off of him or you are afraid you'll miss something! What a voice range! The greatest voice that Rock ever knew. Rating:
Date: 2008-04-11
One Golden Glance--It's Magic
The rock band Queen formed in England in 1972. Although several critics admired their earliest releases, the public remained largely indifferent until the 1974 SHEER HEART ATTACK, which jolted the band to fame in both England and America--and throughout the 1970s Queen generated one major recording success after another with A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, A DAY AT THE RACES, and NEWS OF THE WORLD. Even so, the band often provoked a "love it or hate it" reaction; they offered an odd mixture of thundering hard rock, English musical hall, and progressive sound in a "glamrock" package, and as time passed American audiences found it less and less appealing--particularly when dogged by rumors about lead singer Freddie Mercury's sexuality and the sexually "ify" nature of the band's name itself.
By the early 1980s those controversies, shifts in musical tastes, and the band's extremely ill-advised gig at the segregated South African resort of Sun City effectively knocked Queen out of the lucrative American market. But something unexpected happened: Queen, which had long been a concert favorite in Asia and Europe, emerged as the world's premiere stadium concert act, and quite suddenly the American market was almost irrelevant. Who cares about New York and Los Angeles when you have out-charted every one from Elvis Presley to the Beatles and when you are the single biggest concert draw in world history?
In 1986 Queen played England's Wembley Stadium, one of the largest venues in Europe, performing two concerts (one in a rainstorm) to sold out audiences. The concert was filmed, and it presents a great band that clearly had a great talent for playing to such incredibly large audiences.
When you listen to Queen's most popular releases you listen to a band that knows how to work a recording studio to the nth degree--and so it is very easy to forget exactly how atheletic and musically muscular Queen was. WEMBLEY reminds you of the fundamental facts in no uncertain terms: four band members, a single back up musician to pick up occasional phrases here and there, and that was it. And they clearly do everything but tear Wembley Stadium down to the ground.
At this point in the band's history concerts focused tightly around lead singer Freddie Mercury, who had a unique talent for dominating the massive audiences to which he played: handsome, muscular, he is all over the stage--and then there is that voice. Mercury is said to have had a four-octave range, and while his upper registers were too delicate for the demands of the concert stage you don't doubt it for a minute. This is a voice as delicate as a trembling candle flame, as roaring as bonfire, and shifting between both extremes without the faintest sign of strain or effort. And the band is behind him every inch of the way: Brian May, lead guitar, is a legendary performer in his own right, and bassist John Deacon and drummer Roger Taylor are rock solid as well.
That said, however, the film itself is actually only so-so, and the reason is very obvious: the editing. The thing consists of one flash cut after another, bouncing from Mercury to May to Taylor and shortchanging Deacon in the process. We have plenty of close ups, and very often some remarkable shots of the crowd--"Radio Gaga" is particularly extraordinary in this--but we seldom actually get to see the band as a whole. The endless cuts become more than a little wearing after a while and they ultimately undercut the energy of the concert itself.
The producers make up for this a little bit on the bonus disk, which includes a feature that allows you to focus exclusively on one performer at a time over the course of a few songs. The bonus disk also includes several documentaries that range from the "fair enough" to the "very good." Queen was a great live band, no doubt about it; the film falls short of that, but even so it reminds you very clearly of what Freddie, Brian, John, and Roger could do when they put their minds to it. It also has a certain poignancy, particularly when Mercury remarks that the band will stay together until they die, particularly given that Mercury very likely knew at this point that he was HIV positive and would not be able to tour much longer. He would be dead five years later. Strongly recommended in spite of flaws.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer |
