Kyle Hansen RKH Images; (www.rkh-images.com)

Queen + Adam Lambert – Xcel Energy Center – St. Paul MN – August 10th 2019

Xcel Energy Center and KQRS presents Queen + Adam Lambert.

Queen and Adam Lambert was one of the most anticipated concerts of the year. With the success of Bohemian Rhapsody movie everyone wanted to check out Queen and Adam Lambert.

I saw them a few years back with Paul Rodgers and loved every minute of it, so was looking forward to this one.

The Xcel Energy Center was packed. So packed the main lobby was a traffic jam to get in and hour before the show. As we made our way down to the floor to shoot the show, we saw the stage was huge. It also had a major ramp that came out right into the crowd. The Queen logo was on the front of the stage at the bottom that looked like a crown. As the show started it rose to the top to be the screen for the evening.

They started with Now I’m Here, and snippets of Seven Seas of Rhye and Keep Yourself Alive. It was a short medley of the two. Adam is the perfect singer to represent Queen. Very flamboyant, vocal range perfect, and can work the crowd. He did one thing that impressed me was let Brian May take the stage and be the star of the show. Adam also had several outfit changes throughout the show. First one was a crown designed suit, next one was very heavy metal fashion outfit, a silver outfit that reminded me of a space age suit and for the encore a crown and gold robe. It was very top notch for the show.

They continued with more hits Killer Queen, Don’t Stop Me Now, Somebody to Love, I’m In Love with My Car. For Bicycle Adam came out to the front of the ramp and sang on a Harley Davidson. Not a bicycle but it did work for the song. Another One Bites the Dust got a huge response from the crowd and they kept singing along to I Want It All.

Brian then came out for a small acoustic set with Love of My Life and 39. During Love of My Life a video of Freddy played with him singing with Biran. They then bowed and pinted at each other. Real surreal to see, you could swear he was there. The crowd had some phone lights going but he told everyone to turn them on and the place lit up! I have always loved when the crowd does that. Then Roger Taylor came out, drum set came up from the bottom of the ramp and they kicked it into Doing All Right with him singing. Crazy Little Thing got the whole place dancing and singing. Under Pressure, I Want to Break Free kept the hits coming. Under Pressure had Roger doing David Bowie’s parts and Adam doing Freddie’s parts. It was another highlight of the show. As they were doing this I was just thinking how powerful music can be and to have two other people caring the tune for a whole another generation to see live.

Brian’s guitar solo was amazing. The screen came back down and he was on a stand that came up above it. It started to raise and it turned into space on all the screens on the stage. Then the lasers came out, then the planets came down from the top so it looked like he was out in space. The solo was a spacey new age type pf solo top match the scene he was standing in.  Something that I was not expecting. It was really cool. He then came down and did a small rocking guitar solo before going right into Tie Your Mother Down. As getting down the end you knew what was coming. Before the encore we got The Show Must Go On, Fat Bottom Girls, Radio Ga Ga and Bohemian Rhapsody.

Right before the encore they played a small video of Freddy getting the crowd going with Ay-oh. It was really cool to see. And they closed with We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions of course. The show was absolutely amazing. Adam, Brian, Roger, the band, the sound, the music, the stage, everything!! Do not miss this show. Most places release productions seats days before or day of the show. Keep an eye out, this show is awesome.

For info and dates click HERE

Review and photos by Kyle Hansen.