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By Maura Johnston GLOBE CORRESPONDENT JULY 26, 2017
Since the ’90s, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor have performed as “Queen +” with a number of singers — famed tenor Luciano Pavarotti, original Fugee Wyclef Jean, former Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers — attempting to fill the jazz shoes of Freddie Mercury, who passed away in 1991. Recently, the duo has joined up with singer and “American Idol” alumni Adam Lambert, whose flamboyant style and theatrical vocals are of a piece with Mercury’s aesthetic, if a bit more amped-up.
During Tuesday night’s energetic, if sometimes odd show at TD Garden, Lambert and his new bandmates roared through some of the Queen catalog’s highlights, the six-piece band’s hefty arrangements resulting in an atmosphere that at times felt arena-shaking.
Lambert’s “Idol” run, during which he originally met May, showcased why he and Queen were an ideal fit. He auditioned with “Bohemian Rhapsody,” hinting at both his appreciation of the British band and his flair for the dramatic. Over the course of his season, he skipped through the singing competition’s gauntlet of genres with gusto, adding a sitar to “Ring of Fire” and stripping “If I Can’t Have You” of its disco flourishes. Queen’s approach to genre was even more omnivorous — “Radio Ga Ga” combines sumptuous synthpop with an arena-ready chorus, “Stone Cold Crazy” is so thrashy it warranted a faithful Metallica cover, and the fanciful vocal melodies of “Bicycle Race” and “Killer Queen” throw back to early-20th-century pop.
The setlist offered up a run through the band’s biggest hits, with the one solo track by Lambert — his just-released single, whose phonetically challenging title can’t be printed in a newspaper — getting an arrangement that called to Queen’s arena-size rock instead of the recorded version’s sparse EDM-pop backing. That track came after a short monologue where he enthused over being onstage with artists he’d idolized, and answered snipes that he’s “not Freddie Mercury” with a curt rejoinder.
Mercury himself would have probably noted that a concert — particularly a large-scale show with songs embedded in the pop firmament — was about the audience as well as the performers onstage, and on that level, the show delivered. While Lambert’s vocal pyrotechnics contrast with the approach taken by the exceedingly precise Mercury, his obvious enthusiasm for the material was infectious. The version of “Under Pressure” with Lambert taking Mercury’s part and Taylor handling the late David Bowie’s vocals was surprisingly moving, while his swooning “Somebody to Love” showed how he could maneuver around one of the band’s trickiest songs.
The late Queen frontman appeared a few times via archival video; the most arresting came during May’s sweet solo version of the 1975 ballad “Love of My Life,” while his appearance during the choir interlude of “Bohemian Rhapsody” was akin to him leading a singalong. They were brief yet tasteful, giving American audiences who never got to see Queen in its original run (the last North American tour was in 1982) a glimpse of the past, while Lambert’s performance showed how the band’s catalog will remain a pop force well into the 21st century.
QUEEN + ADAM LAMBERT
At TD Garden, Tuesday
Maura Johnston can be reached at
maura@maura.com.