missingsince1983

I have to say, WOW. These guys do sound incredibly like Queen. Their "Freddie Mercury", Gary Mullen, is amazing. After their first song, One Vision, I actually wondered if he was just miming along to a Queen CD, it was that accurate. On later songs though, he didn't do some of the high falsetto bits and went down the octave instead, which was a shame. Although, he did manage it in Somebody to Love very well. If you listen to the recordings of We Are the Champions on their website here, you'll see what I mean. However, I've been listening to live clips of Freddie Mercury on youtube such as this one and found that he does exactly the same thing so that can't really count as a criticism. Infact, the more videos of Freddie live I see, the more alike I think this guy sounds. Also, it's unreasonable to expect a live performance to sound exactly the same as a recording. Besides, considering the amount of energy this guy must have used leaping around the stage, I'm amazed he was able to sing at all. He was very entertaining to watch.

He had the outfit, and from where I was sitting way way up in the upper balcony, he looked the part which, even from that distance, considering how this guy usually looks, was quite an achievement. Also, the fact that he was able to imitate his voice, was pretty good considering that Gary Mullen has a strong Scottish accent. Although I did think the bits in which he talked to the audience were a little bit awkward sometimes. He also did this vocal improvisation call and response thing with the audience (as Freddie does here) which I preferred to the talking really (partly because it was sometimes difficult to make out the words but that's probably because I have poor hearing). It really did sound like it does on that video.

As I've mentioned, I've looked up the band since the concert and found out that Gary Mullen won the grand final of Stars in their Eyes, prompting him to go on tour full time with his tribute act. I don't know if they have it in other countries but Stars in their Eyes is a soundalike contest which used to be on TV all the time. They'd have a winner at the end of each episode and then at the end of the series, they'd have a grand final with all the winners from the previous episodes to pick an overall winner. He won that back in 2000, and according to that wikipedia article, had by far the most votes ever for that particular show. Apparently he also won the European grand final. This is a video of his performance in that, plus a little of him introducing himself. When you see the clip of him as himself, it's incredible to think that's the same guy who was on stage the other night. He now looks the part a lot more than on that video, including the dancing. His stage presence is very impressive.

The band were all very good at their respective instruments, and the drummer and lead guitarist each had long solos with the other members offstage. They did play the songs very well and the instrumentation was accurate. However, the band was let down massively by the fact that they weren't that great at singing. They weren't so bad that it made the music sound bad, but they were very quiet, and didn't sound quite right. Most of the time they just didn't sing at all so the harmonies that make Queen Queen, weren't there. I was wondering how they'd cope with Bohemian Rhapsody; with it being Queen's signature song, they couldn't really miss it out. As it turned out, they did play it. However, they missed out the beginning completely instead starting with "Mama, just killed a man..." and when it got to the "I see a little silouhetto of a man" bit, they all walked off stage, leaving a recording to play it! Now in some ways, it's commendable that they realised they couldn't do it justice and that they walked off stage to show this, instead of lipsyncing. However, I still think it was unprofessional and I'd have thought that they could have found people capable of singing backup considering how important the harmonies are to Queen's music.

If anyone wants to check them out, there's loads of videos of them on youtube, although I don't think most of them really do them justice. Although, most of the videos are quite old and according to the comments, they've improved a lot since then and they sound better live, which I can definitely attest to. For example, I mentioned earlier about the backing singing being poor, however it was much much better than in some of the videos. Also, I've noticed in some of the comments on these videos, people are complaining that no-one can replace Freddie and that this guy shouldn't be trying. Now, of course no two people are the same, but this guy comes surprisingly close to imitating his voice. It's nice for people like me, who never got the chance to see Queen live, to be able to see this rather than nothing. But all of that applies to tribute acts in general, not just this one.

All in all, an incredible tribute and well worth seeing, but it really is more like (an imitation of) Freddie Mercury with a backing band than Queen.

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MusicMan

Thank you very much for your great review. I'm not usually into tribute bands but it sounds like they're pretty close to the real thing so I may check them out, since I do enjoy Queen.

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missingsince1983

They actually just got back from America. I wasn't too keen on the idea of going to see a tribute band either. I hate it when songs don't sound quite "right". For example, with musicals when they change the cast around, I don't like hearing the different versions, with the odd note length/pitch changed around, or at a different tempo. It just sounds wrong to me. So I was very impressed by how accurate they were. I do wish I could have seen the real Queen though... My dad got to see them twice. So not fair...

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Aqualung

Wow, what a great review! That must have been a really cool show to have gone to.

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papatyt

Th"s
Good sound masters!

Gary Mullen

Thanks for your comments and for the lovely review. Freddie Mercury was an icon and like Elvis Presley, he was one of a kind. Our show is our own personal tribute to the music of Queen and we try our best to emulate their LIVE show.

Hope to see you at another show sometime.

Best wishes

Gary Mullen

Emrabt

I realise this is a year old thread but I would just like to add my 2 cents.
Gary Mullen and the works put on the best queen tribute I have ever seen in my life. I've been to 6 other tributes but none of them have been able to get the feel of queens live music the same as Gary Mullen and his band have.
If any body wants to see what queen were like in the 1980’s see one night of queen Even the light show is an almost an exact replica of 1980’s queen..I’ve now been to see Them 3 time and each year he seems to get better.

Just thought I’d point out that Queen Did this from about 1979 onwards and still do. They start the song at mamma just killed a man, leave just before the opera part and make a big entrance at so you think you can....
They have never performed first bit live. But the cast of we will rock you, accompanied by Brain and Roger performed the middle once, the Queens party at the palace concert in 2002.