It should have been terrible, it really should have been. I mean, it’s almost an “how dare they”….but it wasn’t…it just so wasn’t.
I had a feeling it was going to be a full-out show when I read the warnings on the doors, under the expected “stage smoke and strobe lights” warnings was in big bold print :
The sound levels used in this show may cause damage to your ear drums
I grinned…
If I could do the groupie/fan whistle, I would. As it is, my throat is raw from screaming, and I can’t get the smile off my face, and my rib cage is still thundering with the echoes of the baseline…granted being two rows from the front in a rock show will have that effect on people….:)
We Will Rock You – despite everything that screams out that it shouldn’t – lives up to it’s name.
Take the power of a live show, and combine it with the addictive energy of a true rock concert, and add an audience that is 99% composed of Queen fans. The cast played up to the audience, and played *back* to the audience. At one point someone cat called the main villain [justifiably so, more on that later], and she looked around, smirked, turned to her lackey who had also acknowledged and preened at said whistle, and then promptly dead-panned
it wasn’t for you…moron
and then slid right back into the script.
It hooked you right from the beginning, the lights dropped and as the chords of “Innuendo” blasted out from the band a screen started flashing up milestones in rock n’ roll history, starting with real stuff (the Beatles craze, Queen’s hit single in 1973 etc etc,) then going to modern stuff (Simon sent from hell to destroy rock and roll), and then into FUTURE stuff:
2019: the first computer generated star takes the top spot on the charts,
2021: Kids have to have a license to own an electric guitar,
2043: ALL musical instruments banned
And from there the curtain went up on Radio Ga-ga…the only case where they did slightly alter the words, but it was done in a way that made sense, and the new lyrics were written by the same band member who wrote the original (Radio Ga-ga wasn’t a Freddie written song).
Which brings me to the dancing. Which brings me to an incredibly superficial observation: can we say something about the eye candy? Yes, yes I think we can. And no, I don’t mean because of the occasionally skimpy costumes (though I WANT the Killer Queen’s wardrobe!) I mean the moves. People shouldn’t be able to bend like that. One girl at one point was lying on her stomach *facing* the audience, and her leg was bent completely above her head, as in it looked like it was turned the wrong way….she *must* have been double jointed. And they were SINGING while doing this! I think really, that this topped Chicago for the sexiest show I’ve ever seen…perhaps it was just more blatant, but it was just…shiver-worthy. But at the same time, it wasn’t over-the-top so, it didn’t *play* on being sexy, and it was never sexy at moments where it wasn’t appropriate to be so…but when it was, it …was.
Because I was sitting so close to the front, I was almost *in* the action. At one point part of the set rises out of the stage and swings out over the audience, and it was, literally above my head. At which point I need to mention that the Killer Queen really DID steal the show, so saucy, so confident, and so…just bloody gorgeous, (okay, so the full length, fitted leather coat might have had something to do with that),but not in the typical way, she wasn’t the toned edge perfect that we so often associated with beauty these days, she had curves, and dammit she *knew* how to use them. Think Queen Latifa only slightly thinner (and only slightly) and Caucasian, but that kind of attitude. She just kicked ass and had some awesome cutting dialogue which she delivered with truly excellent form (“*ahem* what part of “don’t stop me now” don’t you understand…”)
However, also worth mentioning that the lead girl was an understudy, and WOW, I think I was privileged, because she was amazing, though I pity her voice in a few years, Queen isn’t kind to the vocal chords! I adored her character though, watching her go from shy and awkward outsider to someone who actually had the guts to believe in herself and fight for something she would have walked away from…she was a character I could relate to, and she was played very very well. “For the first time in my life, I don’t hate myself….”. Indeed…
But the one that sticks in my mind is the girl (yes girl) playing Ms Meatloaf (it’s a long story, find the synopsis, it explains all), sexy, sassy and bloody well not letting ANYONE get in her way, she had the most heart-wrenching and touching song in the whole show, one of the only full solos in the whole story, without even a backup chorus or a single dancer to back her up…the rebels were all sitting in their camp (which by the way, was a fantastic rendering of a very run down Tottemhem Court Road Tube station – which is only funny because the *real* station is actually directly under the theatre)…trying to explain to the lead who they were and where they’d taken their names from (they were all named after old rock stars)…and one of them says:
Don’t you see…their songs have been lost, but their names live on. We remember the ones who died young, Buddy Holly, Jimmy Hendricks, Kurt Cobain, Van Morrison, John Lennon….
And she walks forward, and says, in a very quiet voice….
Freddie…..
And goes into No One But You…
Just…just wow. It could have been separate from the show. It could have simply stood on it’s own, it was…one of the most touching tributes I’ve seen in a long time. And it just seemed…right. And for that, that actress gets the most kudos from me, because it takes guts, and talent to get up there and tackle something so important to so many people…
It took until about a quarter into the second act for the crowd to really realize that it was *okay* to get into it. Until then it was just me and a few other geeks in the front row. But when Under Pressure kicked in, you suddenly felt and entire audience gradually start clapping and snapping in all the right places…and from then on, it was only a question of time. They were, after all, selling glow sticks at the souvenir booth (and yes ,I have one 
) by the time they finally hit the end and blasted into “We Will Rock You”, you couldn’t hold the audience back, the floor was shaking with the vibration of several hundred feet hitting into the base rhythm, and everyone’s hands went up at the same time…and eventually the lead actor simply turned the mic to the crowd for the chorus. And when the next number was “We Are The Champions” everyone was on their feet and the glow sticks came out, and it was all downhill from there…
And just when everyone (well, not me, because I read the reviews and knew what was coming), thought it was over, another set of words flashed across the screen:
DO YOU WANT BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY???
And of course the screams echoed off the walls…and the screen responded with:
OH…ALRIGHT THEN….
And the entire cast, one by one, starting with the lead in a pin spot, took the stage to do a FULL staging of Bo Rap – including the opera section. Which Queen themselves never figured out a way to stage, though they worked on it for years, and when they were putting the show together, it was one thing that the remaining members insisted on, as it turns out it really does require 30+ singers to do it all.
It was really interesting to see how they took such famous landmark songs and worked them into a totally fascinating and new storyline while at the same time changing so little to fit them it. It was very clear that the story was written around the words, not the other way around. It was all done with the *utmost* respect of the original material…and the original artists. And by setting the story so far in the future, they were able to refer to loads of other pop-culture and song references by simply working them into the dialogue, (right at the beginning, when one of the rebels get captured, his captor comes out with “well well, do I see a little silhouetto of a spy?” for example)
It was just….an awesome night, and probably the closest to anything to do with Rock I’ve seen in a long long while…there’s things I’ve missed out, things I’ll look back on later and wish I could remember. But there’s too much. And you can’t really describe the awesomeness that is a beat that rocks your ribcage, and forces your heart to go in time with it. Or the coolness of a rock band that’s visible up either side of the stage (and at the end of the show, takes a major role speaking wise!). Or the amazing feeling of watching a character go through a transformation that is so close to what you’re trying to master in yourself that you can look at the stage and think
“yeah, I wanna be that. And I think I CAN be that”.
And then at the very end, when everyone’s getting up and shuffling out, Brian May’s voice comes over the loud speaker and reminds everyone that the theatre and the production support the Mercury Phoenix Trust, and to please donate on the way out, and there were staff standing dutifully with donation containers at each entrance…and it warmed your heart to see everyone toss something in ,even if it was just a small amount. Two pounds was all I could afford, but it was at least something.
There were other things that made today an awesome day, a day spent in the sunshine watching Covent Garden street performers, the purchase (finally) of a long sought Claddagh ring, the finding and purchasing of a seashell exactly like the ones my grandmother left me. The self-indulgence of getting Buffy omnibus volume 3 and wandering around the biggest Waterstones Bookstore in the city…there are other things…but this show…just…
rocked…plain and simple….