Queen bring some magic to Sydney
Queen brought a kind of magic to the Sydney stage and decided, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
In a concert that closely modelled the opening of their Australian tour in Perth last Friday, the band took to the stage in Sydney's Allphone Arena on Tuesday night, with just one magical song exception.
The band had played almost the exact same setlist in Perth, opening with Now I'm Here and closing with seminal hit Bohemian Rhapsody, but in Sydney they performed their hit A Kind of Magic - which had not been listed for their Perth gig.
The two original band members, guitarist Brian May, 67, and drummer Roger Taylor, 65, were joined on stage with vocals by American Idol alum Adam Lambert, 32, but it was Taylor who took on the vocals for A Kind Of Magic.
Both Taylor and May took some time during the concert to sing solo, with Taylor's attempts on A Kind Of Magic proving a little more successful than May's rendition of Love Of My Life.
Both men took time to shine: May played an acoustic centre-stage set including Love Of My Life during which he asked the audience to sing with him "for Freddie".
Taylor got his moment in the spotlight and chose to share it with his son, Rufus: the pair had an on stage drum battle and Rufus actually played drums throughout the whole concert.
Lambert was flamboyant enough to have about four costume changes, and was easily able to hit Freddie Mercury's high notes but was still somehow in the shade of the legends of both May and Taylor.
The band and Lambert played all the hits including Another One Bites the Dust, Radio GaGa, Killer Queen, We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions for the encore.
Lambert also thanked the crowd for "suspending your disbelief" and letting him sing the songs, saying he wouldn't know what to do on them if it hadn't been for Freddie Mercury.
The show had all the staples of recent Queen concerts including Brian May's selfie stick - it might not hark back to the Queen of the 1990s, but it's May's signature gadget while on stage.
True to form, the astrophysicist took it out and informed the crowd he would be videoing them.
"We can immortalise this moment," he said, before spinning the camera around on stage to get a view of the crowd.
"I'll just have to find someone to Tweet that," he said when he had finished filming.
The band allowed Freddie Mercury to come through on a recorded video playing a few songs, including the final song before the encore, Bohemian Rhapsody, where they left him with the final line: "Any Way The Wind Blows".
The wind might be unpredictable, but the sun was shining directly on to May and Taylor - Queen's heart, soul and, at times, even its frontmen.
