Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Extravaganza is a large word to live up to, it holds an allusion in its embracing hands that few can seriously make peace with, that many fold under the pressure of pursuing, the sense of the spectacular image being torn down by the performer as the sentence and expectations of the public become downed by the realisation that nothing truly can ever top the bill to the point where baited-breath and eyes on stalks witnesses such majesty.
In a world full of showmen and women who excel at creating the perfect stage display, finding the middle ground in which to tread between cool and stylish is a hard act to perform. However, it is in such places that some will inhabit as a matter of course, their blood pumping, their fists, strong and rigid, a heroic stance perhaps thrown in for good measure, in these human beings a certain kind of untameable rage burns, but it is one that exemplifies majesty, of being out front, a willingness to create a persona of rich complexity, so much so that they welcome the chance to attain and hold the idea of the extravaganza fully.
You only have to have delve into the mind of the Queen fan to understand what the band meant to them, an uncovering of delight that has seen the Bohemian Rhapsody film take in at the time of writing, over three times the budget at the Box office. When Queen and Adam Lambert themselves played at the Liverpool Echo in November 2017 the atmosphere was not just electric, it was nuclear, an atomic powered juggernaut of boundless energy and memory-inducing tunes.
Whilst you would not expect a band that is for all intense purposes a covers act to create the same energy, the same strutting madness and beauty, for the five musicians on stage who were put together by Roger Taylor and Brian May to keep the name alive when not touring themselves, Queen Extravaganza lives up to the memory that has been chiselled out over time, that has earned its place in Rock history.
In Alirio Netto, Tyler Warren, Francois-Oliver Doyon, Nick Radcliffe and Darren Reeves, the connection of quality musicianship and swagger were evident, yes it wasn’t Queen but it had the same direction, the resulting vision and as the two-set evening took the Liverpool audience to the place of connecting memory and the replenished soul, of the closest respect to the word extravaganza possible.
In songs such as the wonderfully heavy opener One Vision, Don’t Stop Me Now, Killer Queen, Bicycle Race, Fat Bottomed Girls, A Kind of Magic, I Want It All, Hammer To Fall, Under Pressure, Another One Bites The Dust, These Are The Days Of Our Lives, The Show Must Go On, the expected but still revelled in Bohemian Rhapsody and the encores of We Will Rock You And We Are The Champions, the bond between audience and band was forged, it may not be the Queen you wanted but it was the Queen you required, that was essential to remind you of how good those songs were, a night at the Philharmonic, a day in Liverpool, the show must, and always should, go on.
Ian D. Hall