27 Jul Please The Palate Pick of the Week: Queen + Adam Lambert: The Rhapsody Tour

Legendary rock band Queen with American Idol alum Adam Lambert returned to Los Angeles this past week to the Forum for The Rhapsody Tour. The first time Adam Lambert performed with Queen was on the American Idol finale in 2009. I cried as I listened to Adam Lambert sing with my all-time favorite band. I saw them in concert when they went on their first world tour in 2014-2015 and then again on their second worldwide tour in 2017-2018. Now, following the Oscar-winning film Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen and Adam Lambert are on tour again and without a doubt, The Rhapsody Tour is the Please The Palate pick of the week.

Everything about the concert was excellent! Brian May and Roger Taylor are still as talented as ever, as witnessed by the guitar and drum solos. And Adam Lambert is an amazing talent. He is a showman and a performer but he also has an extraordinary voice.

The show opened with “Keep Yourself Alive” and “Killer Queen” and then Lambert spoke to the audience to address the “pink elephant in the room,” as he called it. He said “I am not Freddie Mercury. I f—ing know, because there will only be one Freddie Mercury. There’s no replacing him. All I’m here to do tonight is celebrate Freddie and carry the torch for Freddie. And I hope I’m making him proud.” He then performed “Don’t Stop Me Now”.  Adam Lambert is not Freddie Mercury but he can definitely hold his own.

Highlights of the concert

Brian May’s duet with Freddie Mercury on “Love of my Life” and the entire Forum lit up by lights

Adam Lambert rising up onto the stage on a motorcycle singing “Bicycle Race” and then “Fat Bottom Girls”

Freddie Mercury appearing in video form to do his famous “Ay-oh” call-and-response and the entire audience participating

Adam Lambert dressed in red coat, high-heeled wedge boots and crown for the encore of “We Will Rock You” followed by “We Are the Champions”

Queen and Adam Lambert performed 30 songs over 2 hours, including my favorites, “The Show Must Go On,” “Who Wants To Live Forever,” and “Somebody to Love.” Who am I kidding, I love all of Queen’s music and at this show, they play everything I wanted to hear!

• “Innuendo”
• “Now I’m Here”
• “Seven Seas of Rhye”
• “Keep Yourself Alive”
• “Hammer to Fall”
• “Killer Queen”
• “Don’t Stop Me Now”
• “In the Lap of the Gods… Revisited”
• “Somebody to Love”
• “The Show Must Go On”
• “I’m in Love With My Car”
• “Bicycle Race”
• “Fat Bottomed Girls”
• “Machines (Or ‘Back to Humans’)”
• “I Want It All”
• “Love of My Life”
• “‘39”
• “Doing All Right”
• “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”
• “Under Pressure”
• “I Want to Break Free”
• “You Take My Breath Away”
• “Who Wants to Live Forever”
• “Last Horizon” (Brian May)
• Guitar solo (Brian May)
• “Tie Your Mother Down”
• “Dragon Attack”
• “Another One Bites the Dust”
• “Radio Ga Ga”
• “Bohemian Rhapsody”
• “We Will Rock You”
• “We Are the Champions”

The energy in the Forum was palpable. There were people of all ages, from children to seniors. Queen really is a band for the ages and Freddie Mercury will live on forever through his music.