Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The cries of targeted derision are heard, the whispers will continue, that it’s just not Freddie up there on stage, pushing the crowd on, cajoling, entertaining, enticing, flirting at every opportunity, and in fairness they are right, it isn’t Freddie Mercury, the symbolic frontman who wowed Wembley in 1985, it isn’t the vocalist who brough tracks such as Bohemian Rhapsody and We Will Rock You to life as crowds gathered in Budapest, Maine Road or The Rainbow, but nobody ever will be, and that is the point, Queen lives on and despite everything that could have gone against them, all the publications and those who decided they were finished, the truth is Roger Taylor and Brian May, along with the exuberant and funny, the dashing and the playful Adam Lambert have created an energy, that may not be quite what you want to hear, but is certainly what you need to experience.
The darkest of days for any Queen fan came when they realised just how ill Freddie Mercury was, the release of understanding when he passed on was incalculable, an enigma reborn, and for many it was the end of the road, but at least they still had their memories, the records; and they would be played long and hard into the night.
Live Around The World adds to that bright light, it isn’t Freddie captured live, the imagination of the listener seeing the microphone held provocatively, the crowd swaying, it is Adam Lambert, and that needs to be recognised, for what the listener will find is a performer at the very top of his game, a vocalist whose talent is extraordinary, who doesn’t need to justify his position on stage with two of the finest musicians of the last fifty years, for he frames the post 1992 world with colour, with an eye for the stage, with a love for the music that even perhaps Mr. Mercury would have allowed himself to let go in later years.
Queen + Adam Lambert, all the beautiful hedonism and rock glory a fan could ask for, and in Live Around The World the sound captured live is one of extraordinary and profound justice to the music that has been inflaming passions for decades, and thrilling audiences, literally around the world.
For those that have not seen the band since the final time they walked off stage as a foursome in the mid-1980s, Live Around The World, it can only be hoped, is an eye opener, a reminder that the music never dies, that time may make dust of us all, but the art remains, and as tracks such as Another One Bites The Dust, Fat Bottomed Girls, Under Pressure, I Want To Break Free, Radio Ga-Ga, Hammer To Fall, and We Are The Champions fills the space between the past and the present, as Adam Lambert more than fills the void and receives his own special place in the hearts and minds of the fans, the listener is reminded of one poignant message, that the show must go on; if it is loved enough, if the music renders the muscle of love to a point where it weeps and smiles with the same dynamic grace, then the show will continue ever onwards.
A live album that is both outstanding, and nails the direction of the band completely; it is not Freddie Mercury making the hairs on the back of the neck stand on edge in appreciation, it is Adam Lambert and Queen giving you absolute pleasure.
Ian D. Hall