QUEEN + Adam Lambert : Live Around The World +1 (2020)

Since their first appearance together in 2009 when Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor appeared as guests on the finale of the eighth season of American Idol on which Adam Lambert was a contestant, the combination of QUEEN + Adam Lambert has gone from strength to strength becoming one of the world’s biggest drawing touring bands.
As hinted at in interviews with the band, Queen + Adam Lambert confirmed the release their first-ever live album: ‘QUEEN + Adam Lambert : Live Around The World’. The set presents a compilation of concert highlights captured the world over personally selected by Taylor, May and Lambert from over 200 shows they have performed with several featured becoming available for the very first time.
As extra, we have the studio single ‘You Are The Champions’, recorded & released in support of the Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund.

Adam Lambert is not Freddie Mercury. Nor, to his credit, does he try to be. What he is, though, is the perfect successor to the iconic Queen vocalist, seemingly predestined to revive the supergroup with his own impossible vocals and over-the-top showmanship.

“Live Around the World,” culled from every tour they’ve done over the last six years, shows the “American Idol” runner-up breathing new life into some of the greatest rock songs ever written, and putting them across just as boldly and fabulously as Mercury did.

But Lambert is no human photocopier; on song after song, he brings his own sensibility and finely-calibrated vocals, unlocking possibilities that had lain hidden for decades.
“Don’t Stop Me Now,” which was a minor hit for Queen in the ’70s but has exponentially grown in popularity since then, helped by its use in TV commercials, finds Lambert teasing the audience by comedically stretching out a note as the audience is ready to charge ahead.

But it all comes with a wink and a nod; on “Fat Bottomed Girls,” performed in Texas with the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders dancing onstage, Lambert follows the line “Ain’t no beauty queens in this locality” with the ad-libbed, “Not true!”
Campiness aside, Lambert may just have the one of best voices in Rock music today, and yes, let’s just say it: there are times he hits notes Mercury dared not, at least not onstage, where Mercury often relied on drummer Roger Taylor as a stunt vocalist to hit the highest notes to help preserve his own voice for the grueling year-long tours the band did.

“Who Wants to Live Forever” is the vocal and dramatic high point of a Queen show these days, and the version here is particularly emotional, dedicated to victims of the Orlando gay club mass shooting the night before.
Taylor is exquisite in the David Bowie role on the “Under Pressure” duet, and guitarist Brian May provides the unmistakable Queen sound with every note and power chord.

They also do two Mercury solo tracks, “Love Kills” and “I Was Born to Love You,” adding a new element to the show and keeping Mr. Mercury front and center even in absentia.
Highly Recommended

1 – Tear It Up
(Live At The O2, London, UK, 02/07/2018)

2 – Now I’m Here
(Live At Summer Sonic, Tokyo, Japan, 2014)

3 – Another One Bites The Dust
(Live At Summer Sonic, Tokyo, Japan, 2014)

4 – Fat Bottomed Girls
(Live At The American Airlines Center, Dallas, USA, 2019)

5 – Don’t Stop Me Now
(Live At Rock In Rio, Lisbon, Portugal, 2016)

6 – I Want To Break Free
(Live At Rock In Rio, Lisbon, Portugal, 2016)

7 – Somebody To Love
(Live At The Isle Of Wight Festival, UK, 2016)

8 – Love Kills – The Ballad
(Live At The iHeart Radio Theater, Los Angeles, USA, 2014)

9 – I Was Born To Love You
(Live At Summer Sonic, Tokyo, Japan, 2014)

10 – Under Pressure
(Live At Global Citizen Festival, New York, USA, 2019)

11 – Who Wants To Live Forever
(Live At The Isle Of Wight Festival, UK, 2016)

12 – The Show Must Go On
(Live At The O2, London, UK, 04/07/2018)

13 – Love Of My Life
(Live At The O2, London, UK, 02/07/2018)

14 – Bohemian Rhapsody
(Live At Fire Fight Australia, ANZ Stadium, Sydney, Australia, 2020)

15 – Radio Ga Ga
(Live At Fire Fight Australia, ANZ Stadium, Sydney, Australia, 2020)

16 – Ay-Ohs
(Live At Fire Fight Australia, ANZ Stadium, Sydney, Australia, 2020)

17 – Hammer To Fall
(Live At Fire Fight Australia, ANZ Stadium, Sydney, Australia, 2020)

18 – Crazy Little Thing Called Love
(Live At Fire Fight Australia, ANZ Stadium, Sydney, Australia, 2020)

19 – We Will Rock You
(Live At Fire Fight Australia, ANZ Stadium, Sydney, Australia, 2020)

20 – We Are The Champions
(Live At Fire Fight Australia, ANZ Stadium, Sydney, Australia, 2020)

+

21 – You Are The Champions (Studio single)
(In Support Of The Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund)

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www.amazon.co.uk/Live-Around-World-Queen-Lambert/dp/B08CJTWP8M