Queen + Paul Rodgers was a collaboration between
Brian May &
Roger Taylor of Queen and
Paul Rodgers (formerly of
Bad Company,
Free,
The Firm and
The Law).
Guitarist Brian May
had previously performed with Paul
Rodgers on several occasions, including a performance at the
Royal Albert
Hall
.
It was made clear that
Paul Rodgers
would not be replacing Queen's former lead singer,
Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991, he would
simply be "featured with" former Queen members. Former Queen
bassist John
Deacon declined to participate in the collaboration due to his
retirement at the end of the 1990s. The group's three principal
members Brian May, Roger Taylor and Paul Rodgers were supplemented
on tour by Queen's former touring keyboard player
Spike Edney, rhythm guitarist
Jamie Moses, and bassist
Danny Miranda who had previously
worked with
Blue Öyster
Cult.
Paul Rodgers announced in May 2009 that
the
Queen + Paul Rodgers collaboration had come to
an end, saying "It was never meant to be a permanent arrangement".
He did, however, leave open the possibility for future
collaborations.
Beginnings (2004)
The origins of the collaboration came when Brian May played at the
Fender Strat Pack concert in 2004. As
he had done so many times before (but beforehand nothing really
happened as far as Queen were concerned), he joined Paul Rodgers
for a rendition of
Free's classic,
"
All Right Now". After this Brian
spoke of a chemistry between the two of them. Following this, Brian
invited Paul to play with Queen at their induction to the
UK Music Hall of Fame where they
played "
We Will Rock You",
"
We Are The Champions" and
"
All Right Now". Again citing a new
excitement with Rodgers, the three announced their world tour in
2005.
Return of the Champions Tour (2005-2006)
The group's first public performance was at a concert in
South Africa in March 2005 in support of
Nelson Mandela's
46664 AIDS awareness campaign.
The tour
began properly with a concert at the Brixton Academy
venue in London, with tickets sold primarily to
members of the official Queen fan club. An arena tour of
Europe followed in the spring of 2005, with dates at venues such as
Wembley Pavilion, Cardiff
International Arena and Le Zenith in France.
Four outdoor stadium
dates were scheduled for the first time in Portugal
at Estadio do
Restelo
(Att: 30.000), at Rhein-Energie Stadion
in Cologne, Germany
(Att:27.500), Gelredome
in Arnhem
, the Netherlands
(Att:25.000) and at Hyde Park
in the UK
(Att:65.000)
in the summer of 2005.
The
Estadio do
Restelo concert took place on the 2
July 2005. The Queen + Paul Rodgers
concert was planned to be one of the stages for
Live 8 but only a message was sent before "
'39". Two songs were dedicated to
Live
8 – "Say It's Not True", a song by
Roger Taylor for Nelson Mandela's fight
against
HIV/
AIDS in
Africa and was introduced by Roger in Lisbon: "This
is a song from Nelson Mandela and for HIV/AIDS Africa, especially
today on Live 8 day. This is a song to Lisbon." After this song
Brian May dedicated "
'39" to
Bob Geldof and
introduced the song "Olá Lisboa! I would like to make a salute to
all our comrades and friends who are doing such a wonderful job and
trying that children through out the world are no longer hungry,
let's make a big noise for Bob Geldof and Live 8".
The Hyde
Park concert took place on the 15
July 2005. The band and management
gave away thousands of free tickets to emergency services people
for helping in the aftermath of the
July 7th London bombings which
caused the concert to be postponed by a week. British comedian
Peter Kay, who had also appeared during
the encore at their Manchester gig in May of that year, warmed the
crowd up, with the band
Razorlight
serving as the support act. The concert was attended by some 65,000
people and Queen + Paul Rodgers performed for over 2 hours.
typical set list mainly focused on Queen's best-known hits, with
songs such as "
Crazy
Little Thing Called Love", "
We Will
Rock You", "
We Are the
Champions" and "
Bohemian
Rhapsody". In an interview that was published in the
San Jose Mercury News, Paul Rodgers
stated that the one song they would not be able play while on tour
is "
Killer Queen" due to the
fact that: "the melodies are just too on the spot." The typical set
also included some songs from the back catalogues of
Free and
Bad Company,
such as "
All Right Now", "Wishing
Well", "Feel Like Making Love", and "Bad Company". Brian May and
Roger Taylor sang lead on some songs. May: "
Hammer to Fall" (the first part only),
"
Love of My Life",
"
'39" (which he sang lead on the studio version
originally). Taylor: "
Radio Ga Ga" (Both
verses and first two choruses), "
These Are the Days of Our
Lives", "Say It's Not True" (a new song) and "
I'm in Love with My Car" (which he
sang lead on the studio version originally as well). He would often
leave the drum kit (the exception being "I'm in Love with My Car")
while a drum machine played on "Radio Ga Ga" and "These Are the
Days of Our Lives". For "Say It's Not True", he would be
accompanied by auxiliary band members Danny Miranda and Jamie Moses
who both played acoustic guitars (except for the 46664 concert, in
which Roger was accompanied by Brian and Jamie – which was the only
time Brian played guitar on this song during the tour).
In
addition to well known favourites and hits, there were a number of
occasional 'surprise' additions to the setlist, including:
"I Was Born to Love
You" (Japan
only),
"Imagine" (John Lennon cover, Hyde Park only), "Teo Torriatte" (Japan only), "Too Much Love Will Kill You"
(feat. Katie Melua, South
Africa only), '"Long Away" (selected shows
only), "Tavaszi Szel" (Budapest
only) and "Let There Be Drums" (Sandy Nelson cover performed at most
gigs). "
Sunshine of Your
Love" was played in Newcastle as testament to the
Cream reunion gig in London going on at the
same time (3 May). Brian May was present at that show the night
before, which possibly inspired him to do it (2 May). The band also
added "
Dragon Attack" to a number of
shows on the 2006
North American
tour.
Queen +
Paul Rodgers followed the European tour with a series of
performances in the fall of 2005, in such diverse locations as
Aruba, Japan and the United States
of America. Slash,
former lead guitarist of the band Guns N'
Roses and currently of Velvet
Revolver, joined the band onstage for "Can't Get Enough" during
their show at the legendary Hollywood Bowl
, the second of their two-show trial run in North
America (22 October 2005).
In the winter/spring of 2006, Queen + Paul Rodgers played a 23-date
tour of North America.
The tour started at the American
Airlines Arena
in Miami
(first
Florida
date since 1978, first USA shows since 1982) and
ended with a sold-out performance in Vancouver
, Canada
(where they
also, among other surprises that occurred during the show, covered
the Jimi Hendrix song "Red House" – the only performance
of this song on the tour).
The Cosmos Rocks (2006-2008)
On 15 August 2006,
Brian May confirmed
through his website and fan club that Queen + Paul Rodgers would
begin producing their first studio album beginning in October, to
be recorded at a "secret location".[38] The album, titled
The Cosmos Rocks, was released in the
European Union on 12 September 2008 and in the United States on 28
October 2008. This was to be Queens 16th studio album and the first
since 1995's
Made in Heaven.
On June
27, 2008, Queen + Paul Rodgers performed at Hyde Park in London
for Nelson
Mandela's 90th birthday celebration. The performance
included a portion of "One Vision", "Tie Your Mother Down", "Show
Must Go On", "We Will Rock You", "We Are the Champions", and "All
Right Now". Following this, the group embarked on the Rock The
Cosmos Tour,[39] opening on 12 September with an AIDS-benefit
concert to an audience of over 350,000 people in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
The Tour then Moved to Russia, Before continuing around europe. The
Concert in Ukraine was later made into a film for world AIDS day
and subsequently DVD
Live in
Ukraine. This tour did include a rare performance of Las
Palabras de Amor and the first ever live performance of
Bijou.
Split (2009)
With a summer reunion tour with
Bad
Company looming, the singer told
Billboard.com that the Queen + Paul Rodgers
collaboration is, in effect, over, and without animosity. "At this
point we're gonna sit back from this," Rodgers says. "My
arrangement with (Queen's Brian May and Roger Taylor) was similar
to my arrangement with Jimmy (Page) in The Firm in that it was
never meant to be a permanent arrangement.
"I think we made a huge success of it, actually. We did two world
tours and a couple of live recordings, and...made a studio album
which was pretty historical for (Brian May and Roger Taylor)
because they hadn't really gone in the studio with anybody and
recorded something like that for a very long time. So it was quite
an achievement, I think."
Rodgers does not rule out the possibility of working together
again, however. "It's kind of an open book, really. If they
approach me to do something for charity, for instance, or something
like that...I'd be very much into doing that, for sure."
Other performances
Queen + Paul Rodgers appeared on
Al Murray's Happy Hour in April
(2008) performing "
C-lebrity" for the
first time from their debut album
The Cosmos Rocks.
Queen + Paul Rodgers appear on Eminem's 2009 album
Relapse. The song "Beautiful" samples
"Reaching Out" which was used as Q+PR's live show opener on the
2005-06 tour. "Reaching Out" was originally released as a charity
single by Rock Therapy, a band which contained both Paul Rodgers
and Brian May.
Media releases
Queen + Paul Rodgers released a single for
World AIDS Day (December 1) in 2007. The
track, "
Say It's Not True",
written by
Roger Taylor became
first available for free download on November 30, and was
subsequently released as a proper CD single on December 31.
Previously, Queen + Paul Rodgers have released a live CD called
Return of the
Champions and a DVD of the same name.
Both featured
recordings from their Sheffield
Hallam FM
Arena
concert on 9 May 2005. The DVD also features
a cover of
John Lennon's "
Imagine" from Hyde Park. A single featuring
"
Reaching Out"/"
Tie Your Mother Down"/"
Fat Bottomed Girls" was also released. In
addition, an American promo featuring two tracks taken from the
Italian leg of the European tour was available with some copies of
Return of the Champions.
Soundboard recordings exist of all
European shows, except those in Ireland and Sweden.
Sheffield, Lisbon
, Hyde
Park and possibly Budapest concerts were professionally filmed. The
Tokyo show on October 26, 2005 was also professionally filmed and
televised, and later released on DVD exclusively in Japan in April
2006, entitled "
Super Live in
Japan". Many soundboard recordings of tracks were released for
download on the Queen official website, with blank Q+PR CD-Rs to
burn these tracks available for purchase.
Also there are many
bootlegs from
nearly every show of the 2005/2006 tour in audio, and some
video.
Discography
Studio albums
Live albums
DVDs
Singles
*"Reaching Out" (live)/"Tie Your Mother Down" (live)/"Fat
Bottomed Girls" (live)(Queen + Paul Rodgers) 2005 -
Single-#UK12'
Produced by
NCM Fathom and
Disney’s
Hollywood
Records.
A concert movie
captured live September 12 from Ukraine
in Kharkiv
's Freedom Square
before 350,000 fans. It was shown in U.S.
movie theatres one night only - Thursday, November 6, 2008.
References
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