We Will Rock You

The one highlight of a mostly rather drab and miserable visit to my old home town this last weekend was attending an open-air gig by a Queen cover band called Rhapsody (well, actually their full name appears to be Rhapsody - Is This The Real Queen?.... but using complete sentences for band names is generally a bad idea, and using questions is doubly bad; I can't imagine that anybody ever uses this unduly cumbersome full title, and I certainly prefer to think of them simply as Rhapsody).

The intermittent drizzle that had plagued us all day became heavier and more persistent as night fell. And it was bloody freezing. (Is it really July? It doesn't feel like summer at all in England at the moment.) But the band did a pretty good job of distracting the modest crowd from their dismal surroundings for an hour. The singer produced an impressive impersonation of Freddie - capturing both the vocal range and the swaggering stage antics of the great man surprisingly well (though not his profanity; this was a "family show"). The guitarist, however, was - inevitably - a little disappointing: a decent enough player who replicated Brian May's sound quite well, but he just couldn't nail those sublime solos we know so well.

All in all, though, a very jolly show. Ah, Queen - so many rollicking good tunes!

This is the kind of band I'd like to see brought to China. I'm sure they'd draw good expat crowds, but perhaps the local rock fans wouldn't be sufficiently enthused to pay to see a cover band. Now that I come to think of it, I don't think I've ever heard anyone playing Queen in China. I wonder if they are another of the great 'unknown' bands there??