{"id":41207,"date":"2008-11-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/live-at-wembley-stadium-dvd\/"},"modified":"2008-11-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-05T00:00:00","slug":"live-at-wembley-stadium-dvd","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/live-at-wembley-stadium-dvd\/","title":{"rendered":"Live At Wembley Stadium (DVD)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few bands have ever done bombast better than Queen, and this is never more evident than in the context of their live shows. Everything\u2019s larger than life, from the incredible lighting rigs to Brian May\u2019s rich, singing guitar riffs to the packed crowds (this sold-out outing at Wembley Stadium had the band playing to over 120,000 fans). Queen sounds excellent in the studio, all crisp harmonies and layers of orchestral guitars, yet somehow their material has always translated well to the stage. Even stripped of the multitracking, the group sounds just as full onstage, which is owed part to how well their voices mesh together — drummer Roger Taylor\u2019s gravely rasp, the sweet, almost frail tones of Brian May, and, of course, Mercury, who can veer from falsetto to baritone as quick as you can say sequined catsuit (bassist John Deacon claims to have never sung a note, though he\u2019s always outfitted with a microphone anyway).\u00a0 Plus, despite the fact that Queen was more notorious for their gleeful, boundary-pushing antics, the four members were truly excellent musicians, and on July 12th, 1986<\/st1:date>, they sounded as tight and as energetic as ever. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The Live At Wembley Stadium<\/i> DVD features the band on its Magic Tour, <\/i>supporting their 1986 album, A Kind Of Magic <\/i>(a somewhat patchy collection of songs that acts as a sort of soundtrack for the film Highlander<\/i>, with six of the nine tracks appearing in the movie. On disc, A Kind Of Magic <\/i>is a little too synthed-up for my taste, but the live cuts featured here finally seem in their element. Show opener \u201cOne Vision\u201d is blazing, with crunching guitars, powerful drums, and Mercury caterwauling about the stage in a display of energy that kind of exhausts me just watching it; one moment he\u2019s pumping his fists, then the camera cuts away for a second and picks up on him swinging from the rafters or scaling the drum risers. It\u2019s grittier and faster than the album version, featuring an extended intro to up the anticipation in those first few moments before the band sprint out. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

From there, the show is a solid mix of new material, big hits, and a few past gems thrown in for good measure. Following a blistering rendition of \u201cTie Your Mother Down,\u201d with Mercury\u2019s voice deep and lascivious as ever on this number, the band dig up \u201cIn The Lap Of The Gods\u2026Revisited\u201d from 1973\u2019s Sheer Heart Attack. <\/i>It\u2019s a lovely, soaring number, all swaying harmonies and Mercury\u2019s rich, clear vocals. For the abuse his throat suffered over the years, from heavy smoking to his frequent polyps, he still sounds incredible, whether he\u2019s handling the string-laden, wrenching ballad \u201cWho Wants To Live Forever\u201d or bringing the roof down with a short, cheeky rocker from The Works, <\/i>\u201cTear It Up.\u201d <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s not just Mercury\u2019s show, though from his opening line, \u201cHello there, my beauties, is it happening?\u201d he has the audience in the palm of his hand — as always. On \u201cAnother One Bites The Dust\u201d and \u201cUnder Pressure,\u201d John Deacon\u2019s classic basslines take center stage, while later in the setlist \u201cRadio<\/st1:city> Ga<\/st1:state><\/st1:place> Ga\u201d has Roger Taylor\u2019s deep raspy backing vocals providing a nice counterpoint to Mercury\u2019s crisper tones on this Taylor-penned track. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, \u201cLove Of My Life,\u201d a staple in the Queen concert repertoire, sounds as lovely as ever with just Mercury duetting with the audience and May lending his light, sweet acoustic guitar.\u00a0 Mercury\u2019s call and response with the audience has always been one of his go-to tricks, seen every time he closes out the show with \u201cWe Are The\u00a0 Champions\u201d or \u201cWe Will Rock You,\u201d but there\u2019s a wistfulness and a sincerity to the interaction on \u201cLove\u00a0 Of My Life\u201d that takes it to a more intimate place. The moment here where Mercury says plainly, \u201cI still love you,\u201d and the audience erupts into cheers is simply breathtaking, an ever-poignant reminder of what a talent the world lost with his death in 1991. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Queen shows have retained some staples since the band began touring in the early \u201870s: Brian May\u2019s epic, echoing guitar solos after \u201cNow I\u2019m Here\u201d and a short medley of covers in the setlist. Their Wembley show has the group skimming through \u201c(You\u2019re So Square) Baby I Don\u2019t Care,\u201d \u201cHello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart),\u201d\u00a0 \u201cTutti Frutti,\u201d and \u201cGimme Some Lovin\u2019\u201d before they finally launch into their most definitive hit, \u201cBohemian Rhapsody.\u201d The medley itself is fairly solid, full of raucous energy, but it still would\u2019ve been nice to hear another gem from their back catalogue in those five minutes instead. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Live At Wembley Stadium <\/i>is a breathless, near-seamless look into a band arguably at their peak, and they sound on top of the world. For all their envelope-pushing in the studio, Queen made the live show their own, too, and there\u2019s really no better proof of their brilliant energy than this DVD.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":29610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5633],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41207","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-queen","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41207"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}