Queen + Paul Rodgers

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Queen + Paul Rodgers

Background information
Origin England England
Genre(s) Rock
Arena rock
Glam rock
Hard rock
Heavy metal
Progressive 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 was inducted into the UK Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Guitarist Brian May had previously performed with Paul Rodgers, formerly of Bad Company and 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), 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

[edit] 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 Gelredomeand (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 message 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 "Ola 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).

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).

[edit] 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]

[edit] 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.

[edit] Discography

[edit] External links

Queen
John Deacon | Brian May | Freddie Mercury | Roger Taylor
History | Live performances | Songs
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
DVDs: 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
Related Articles
Ibex | Larry Lurex | Smile | The Cross | Queen + Paul Rodgers | We Will Rock You Musical
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