Mercury - Bacon Theatre, Cheltenham

Wednesday 3rd June 2009

This is a Crackerjack review of Mercury - The Ultimate Queen Experience. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.

Crackerjack rating: 9 / 10.

In the words of that reflective elegy The Days of Our Lives, sometimes I get to feeling I was back in the old days. I certainly did tonight. A right royal performance by the remarkably authentic Mercury saw to that, carrying its small but passionate audience back to those halcyon years of the 70s and 80s when Freddie and the boys ruled the roost. Those days are all gone now, but some things remain: flair, style, imagination and music of the first division, and which lived again in 32 brilliantly performed songs, faithfully recreating all the majesty of the live Queen concerts of old.

From the opening chords of One Vision to the climactic We Are The Champions, Mercury were in unrelenting overdrive. There were the thrilling guitar heroics of A Kind of Magic and the epic Innuendo, the soaring vocals of Somebody To Love, and the savage power of I Want It All. Yet there were gentler moments in the warmth of You’re My Best Friend, Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy and the delicate Love Of My Life duet. Famous crowd-pleasers We Will Rock You, I Want To Break Free and Radio Ga Ga were all present and imperially correct, and capped with a stirring rendition of the legendary Bohemian Rhapsody.

The replica instruments and costumes, formidable musicianship and finely observed impersonations give Mercury an edge over other Queen tribute bands I have seen. Plugged into his predecessor’s Vox AC30 amps, unleashing one sizzling break after another, Glenn Scrimshaw looks and plays like Brian May. Pat Coleman displays all the percussive might of Roger Taylor and proved it in one devastating solo, while Steve Humphreys provides the stable, unobtrusive anchor that was still water John Deacon. It was charismatic frontman Joseph Lee Jackson, however, whose studied portrayal of Freddie, especially his uncannily accurate voice, left me shaking my head in wonderment. Leaving all keyboard work to the versatile Lee Harvey, alias Spike Edney, he captured all the unique mannerisms of The Great Pretender, strutting, swaggering and scampering through clouds of dry ice like a demented peacock. Inevitably, he took his final bow decked in flowing velvet robe and jewelled coronet, crowning a night of regal splendour and pure joy. This show must go on – magnificent.

Simon Lewis

This is a Crackerjack review of Mercury - The Ultimate Queen Experience. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.