ADRIAN THRILLS: Unearthed after 33 years… more miracles from Freddie Mercury and Brian May
QUEEN: The Miracle (EMI Deluxe Collector’s Edition)
Rating: ****
Verdict: Still a kind of magic
DERMOT KENNEDY: Sonder (Island)
Rating: ***
Verdict: Passionate Celtic soul
Freddie Mercury said Queen did things ‘bigger and better’, and the band he fronted lived up to that billing.
Their artistic range was dazzling and the success they enjoyed was enormous — which goes some way to explaining why there’s still so much interest in them more than three decades after his death.
This year, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor brought their spectacular Rhapsody tour to UK arenas — and the Platinum Party At The Palace — with American vocalist Adam Lambert stepping into the shoes of Mercury.
Prior to that, there was a jukebox musical (We Will Rock You) and Oscar-winning biopic (Bohemian Rhapsody).
Now comes an expanded repackaging of The Miracle, the group’s penultimate album in Mercury’s lifetime, and a record that saw them return to the grandiose, hard-rocking style they pioneered in the 1970s while reiterating their importance to 1980s pop.
Freddie Mercury said Queen did things ‘bigger and better’, and the band he fronted lived up to that billing
It’s a reissue bolstered by five unreleased songs plus another, the ballad Face It Alone, that emerged for the first time only last month.
The original 1989 album arrived at a watershed moment. Mercury, who died from Aids-related pneumonia in 1991, had yet to go public with his diagnosis, but his bandmates were aware of it and rallied round. With Freddie no longer able to tour, Queen would be a studio-based act from that point onwards.
According to May, the Miracle sessions were harmonious — not always a given with a combustible outfit in which all four members were competitive songwriters. In this case, the songs were built up in the studio, with writing credits shared. ‘We left our egos at the door,’ says May.
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THREE LIONS by BADDIEL, SKINNER & LIGHTNING SEEDS
‘It’s coming home for Christmas,’ goes this new version of England’s Euro 1996 anthem. Ahead of the team’s first World Cup match on Monday, it comes with sleigh bells, children’s choir and fresh lyrics.
The original LP, remastered here, is a reminder of Mercury’s stature as one of rock’s greatest showmen. His singing, even in failing health, was gloriously over the top and his emotional range was stunning: the opening lines of Breakthru are soft and delicate; I Want It All, its title taken from a quote from May’s wife Anita Dobson, is all rock and roll power.
It’s hard to listen to the epic Was It All Worth It without hearing a reflection on mortality. ‘What is there left for me to do … am I a happy man, or is this sinking sand?’ sings Freddie of his ‘godforsaken life’ in the spotlight. But there’s a sting in the tale: ‘Yes, it was a worthwhile experience. It was worth it.’
It’s not all killer Queen: the bonus material — and there’s a lot of it, especially on the bumper, eight-disc edition — is hit and miss. An instrumental version of the entire LP is superfluous and hardcore fans will already be familiar with 12-inch versions of Breakthru, The Invisible Man and Scandal, plus a string of B-sides.
The real interest is in the ‘new’ songs. Despite the inclusion of three unheard tracks on 2014’s Queen Forever, the Queen archives haven’t exactly been generous in yielding buried treasures since 1995’s posthumous Made In Heaven album. This package goes some way to remedying that.
It’s easy to see why Dog With A Bone, built around an AC/DC-style riff, slide guitar and throwaway lyrics, stayed locked in the vaults for 33 years.
Elsewhere, though, there are a couple of Mercury masterclasses.
Face It Alone is another emotive reflection on life and death, and When Love Breaks Up, even though it lasts just two minutes, contains some classic Queen ingredients — Bohemian Rhapsody-style harmonies and a vocal tour de force from Freddie.
May gets a look-in, too: You Know You Belong To Me is a minor-chord delight and Water another promising acoustic piece.
As Mercury tells the band at the end of I Guess We’re Falling Out, another track built around those harmonies: ‘That’s good, that’s good … it’s worth listening to that.’ You can understand why May and Taylor work so hard to keep the flame alive.
Dermot Kennedy cut his teeth as a busker in his native Dublin. His second album, Sonder, draws from a substantially wider palate — auto-tuned R&B, electrified rock and Celtic fiddle — but Kennedy retains the street entertainer’s knack of connecting on a simple, emotional level.
He describes Sonder as being ‘brighter’ than his 2019 debut, Without Fear, a UK chart-topper, though his optimism is punctuated by darker undercurrents. Something To Someone is a rocker about long-distance love, while the vicissitudes of romance loom large on Any Love, a salute to an old flame.
A fondness for big arrange- ments means that Sonder regularly sounds like the work of a band rather than a solo singer-songwriter.
The Elton-like ballad Dreamer is festooned with fiddles. Kiss Me, written with Bastille’s Dan Smith and inspired by an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, is a rich, dramatic love song that should come alive when he tours next spring.
The Miracle is out in multiple formats, including double CD (£15), vinyl picture disc (£32), cassette (£13) and eight-disc box set (£145) (queenonline.com). Dermot Kennedy starts a UK tour at the OVO Hydro Arena, Glasgow, on March 31, 2023 (ticketmaster.co.uk).
Live: Rod Stewart (Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham)
Rating: ****
Verdict: He wears it well
‘We’re full of energy, so we don’t tire,’ said Rod Stewart as he led his band into the first night of a UK tour. He was as good as his word, too, serving up a career-spanning set in which his determination to give fans plenty of bang for their buck didn’t waver. At 77, he can still throw a swell party.
Arriving onstage to pre-recorded bagpipes, and sporting a silver satin jacket straight out of his 1970s wardrobe, Rod hit the ground running and upped the ante from there. If the early parts of a two-hour show were high on the gaudy razzle-dazzle of his Las Vegas residency, The Hits, it was his authenticity and artistry that ultimately shone through.
Accompanied by agile musicians and backing singers, he revisited early favourites You Wear It Well and Maggie May and performed the Faces’ Ooh La La as photos of old bandmates were projected onto a giant screen. Handbags And Gladrags (‘I first sang this in 1969’) was a highlight of an acoustic mini-set.
‘We’re full of energy, so we don’t tire,’ said Rod Stewart as he led his band into the first night of a UK tour
For all the nostalgia, though, it was a show that lived in the moment, acknowledging 2022’s big issues. ‘I appreciate how money is tight,’ he said, thanking fans for coming out on a wet Wednesday night.
He sang Rhythm Of My Heart in the blue and yellow of Ukraine, with loud cheers greeting an image of President Zelensky. And a portrait of The Queen dominated the stage during Sailing. Rod remains a master of playing to the gallery, leading a singalong on an emotional I Don’t Want To Talk About It and breaking into a Cheshire Cat grin on The First Cut Is The Deepest.
Before Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?, he asked if anyone had ever been to fabled New York nightspot Studio 54 (‘Not in Nottingham,’ deadpanned the woman behind me). ‘I should know better at my age . . . but I don’t,’ he quipped. Like that raspy voice, his mischievous humour remains in fine fettle.
The tour continues on Tuesday at The O2 Arena, London (livenation.co.uk).
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