Recently, Brian May shared on Instagram the advice he gave Adam Lambert to enhance Queen’s performances by relying on the heritage of the incomparable Freddie Mercury. The guitarist posted a video of Lambert singing “Somebody to Love” during one of their most recent concerts and explained the background behind the film in his post: I’m smiling because this clip from tonight’s performance at the Boston Garden contains a brief narrative. It is the outcome of one of those minor modifications that we continually seek out in order to improve the show. Adam performs our songs in his own distinctive style, adding many fresh ideas and occasionally breathtaking vocal line extensions. This is especially evident in “Somebody to Love,” in which Adam consistently pulls off a great performance. Then he described their customary performance of “Somebody to Love”: “Well, there’s a part of the song that all of our fans are extremely familiar with where the music stops and we ask the crowd to finish the phrase, which is a tradition that dates back to Freddie.
“Someone toooooooooo?” Well, Adam has been extending that “tooo” in a way that adds extra glitter for a while. You can listen to recordings of earlier tour nights to check it out. The guitarist then shared his tips for Lambert to engage the listeners more effectively on that song: “However, the crowd seemed to be struggling with how to sing that line as a whole, and I surmised that this was because the cue had been changed from how it appeared on the original studio recording. It might have given the sentence a resolution as well. In order to give the listener a clear indication, I advised Adam to try singing the conclusion of the line entirely straight as an experiment. This is what happened when he tried it for the first time tonight. May also considered their communication after observing the audience’s response: You can see me paying close attention to what can happen at the beginning of this video. We knew as soon as we received the reply! As a result, when I smile and say, “Not bad,” to Adam, he laughs and replies, “It worked!” Then, over the song’s conclusion, he launches into a turbocharged succession of improvised lines in his joy.
The musician concluded by expressing his final impressions of the clip and that particular moment, saying: Yes, he frequently improvises over the descending lines here. but this time, he’s reaching new heights! I challenge you to think of anyone else who could even come close to what he is doing as he is wailing in full voice, not falsetto, all the way up to a high ‘E. You can therefore see in my face how much I like and love this particular moment, in which we are all obviously experiencing new joy. Thanks for the opportunity to reveal a small portion of QAL’s inner workings, Daniela de Stereos. For the current leg of their “Rhapsody Tour” in North America, Queen + Adam Lambert are on the road. In the next days, they will perform in a variety of cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, and Los Angeles.
