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Reviews > Queen + Paul Rodgers Concert Reviews > 11-05-2008 - WhatsOnNE.co.uk - Newcastle

Review: Queen and Paul Rodgers, Metro Radio Arena
by Monica Keeler

QUEEN without Freddie Mercury would be like fish without chips, bread without jam and Laurel without Hardy! It could never be.

Oh how wrong I was. Paul Rodgers had an enormous pair of shoes to fill and fill them he did.

The unmistakable sound of Brian May on lead guitar got the crowd going as they kicked off the night with the Queen classic Hammer to Fall and Tie Your Mother Down.

Hit after hit followed such as Fat Bottomed Girls, Another One Bites the Dust and I Want to Break Free. Then the crowd embraced some of their new material from their current album Cosmic Rocks, like C-lebrity and Surf’s Up.

With acoustic guitar in hand, May then took the stage and after a blast of his version of Fog on the Tyne, he played an acoustic tribute to the late, great Freddie – Love of My Life. I’m sure there wasn’t a dry eye in the house and that included him.

Roger Taylor swiftly followed with a drum solo and amazingly played the drum on the double bass to the tunes of Under Pressure and Another One Bites the Dust.

The pair teamed up and the crowd went wild as they belted out It’s a Kind of Magic. More new songs such as Voodoo and We Believe followed, with Paul Rodgers on piano.

May took centre stage once again as he played Who Wants to Live Forever, with Freddie again on screen. The fans were right into it by now and thus followed the fantastic crowd-puller Radio Ga Ga. Only once before did I see this: at St James’s Park in 1986 on The Kind of Magic Tour. It brought a lump to my throat.

More classics followed and the crowd were jumping: The Show Must Go On and the one and only Bohemian Rhapsody, with arguably the best showman that ever lived on screen.

Cosmic Rocks started the encore closely followed by the legendary Free song All Right Now.

The night finished with two of the most unforgettable Queen classics, We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions.

And so it came to be. Queen lives on, with the voice of Paul Rodgers not trying to emulate the legend that is Freddie Mercury, but a star in his own right.

He did the great man proud! Al Murray Pub Landlord is right: Queen truly are and always will be the greatest rock band in the world.