{"id":3620,"date":"2014-09-24T11:32:44","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T09:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/?p=3620"},"modified":"2016-12-03T15:05:47","modified_gmt":"2016-12-03T14:05:47","slug":"queen-live-in-new-york-city-madison-square-garden-november-16th-1978","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/?p=3620","title":{"rendered":"Queen Live in New York City Madison Square Garden November 16th 1978"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s and interesting article about Queen performing in NY in 1978. Enjoy!! From Rolling Stone Magazine, Jan. 25th 1979. Why RS never liked Queen music??<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-3619\" src=\"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/watermarked-01_NY_MSG_1978_article-639x800.jpg\" alt=\"watermarked-01_NY_MSG_1978_article\" width=\"639\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/watermarked-01_NY_MSG_1978_article-639x800.jpg 639w, https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/watermarked-01_NY_MSG_1978_article-624x780.jpg 624w, https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/watermarked-01_NY_MSG_1978_article.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 639px) 100vw, 639px\" \/>\r\n<div class=\"2416a19e08873d0076105f82e7f970da\" data-index=\"4\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/rcm-eu.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/cm?o=29&p=26&l=ur1&category=prime_video&banner=145YC6XKJN2WZ21YRD82&f=ifr&linkID=04b588e03156f0ac163b0eee69e01120&t=queenmucom-21&tracking_id=queenmucom-21\" width=\"468\" height=\"60\" scrolling=\"no\" border=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" style=\"border:none;\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n\r\n<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If QUEEN&#8217;s Performance lived up to the promise of their entrance, it&#8217;d be the biggesr event since the fall of the Roman Empire. Freddie\u00a0Mercury, clad in storm-trooper black, comes out swaggering, brandishing bis microphone stand\u00a0like a riding crop, while guitarist\u00a0Brian May unleashes a Valkyrian ride of power riffs. &#8220;Let me enter\u00ad tain you;&#8217;sings Mercury; itis-nota request, b.ut a command. For a moment it seems as if we will be swept away by some dark, Diony\u00ad sian rite that leaves nothing in its wake but shattered champagne crystal and deflowered eleven\u00ad year-olds.<\/p>\n<p>The next two hours of Queen&#8217;s set, however, don&#8217;t match the ex\u00adcitement of those first few minutes. Queen is a band with a cleverly construcred,veneer: on the surface their music sounds profound and\u00a0resonant, but underneath there&#8217;s no substance. The group&#8217;s studio work maintains this illusion of depth with dense, imaginative pro\u00adduction and arrangements. On\u00ad stage the veneer wears thin.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Part of Queen&#8217;s problem is their musicianship. Mercury possesses a strong baritone that could be an expressive\u00a0 \u00a0instrument,\u00a0 \u00a0but\u00a0 \u00a0he\u00a0locks himself into a caricature. He knows <i>only <\/i>one theatrical tech\u00adnique: exaggeration. His head ap\u00adpears to be permanently cocked back, his chest swells like an oper\u00adatic buffoon. And when attempt\u00ad ing a ballad like &#8220;You&#8217;re My Best Friend&#8221; (part of an acoustic seg\u00ad ment sandwiched between the electric portions of the set), Mer\u00ad cury tries so hard to act out his emotion that he defeats bis own ability to communicate it. He&#8217;s like a rock &amp; roll Enzo Stuarti.<\/p><div class=\"2416a19e08873d0076105f82e7f970da\" data-index=\"2\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6280590296994447\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- quadrato -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:500px;height:250px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6280590296994447\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"6452889443\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Mercury \u00a0comes \u00a0across \u00a0with more \u00a0flair than \u00a0the \u00a0rest \u00a0of \u00a0the group. Bassist John \u00a0De\u00e0con \u00a0and drummer Roger Taylor are more than adequate players on record, but onstage they are possibly the worst \u00a0rhythm \u00a0section in rock &amp; rolt Taylor plods. He nor only has \u2022 <i>l<\/i><i>i<\/i><i>ttle<\/i>graspoftechnicalnuance, \u00a0but also seems to bave only recently cliscoverecl the ba\u00e7kbeat. (Bis solo spot consists of a lorig drum roll\u00a0fed through a phase shift:er.) Brian May, apolished , technically aclr:oit heavy-metal guitarist,stands off to\u00a0one side and plays his parts inde\u00ad pendentof the others. The ensem\u00adble results are chaotic. &#8220;Keep Yourself Alive:&#8217; one of Queen&#8217;s best songs, loses ali dynamics in performance. On the record, it builcls from one guitar riff to a multilayered crescendo; live, the band charges into it li\u00b0ke four wilcl stallions on the rampage. They don&#8217;t build the song, they rush it, and by the end the tempo is nearly twice as fast as when the song began.<\/p>\n<p>Queen&#8217;s \u00a0staging \u00a0is \u00a0similarly\u00a0confused. On this tour they&#8217;re using the standard array of arena\u00ad scale effects: smoke, strobes,\u00a0 a second stage that clescends from above. But instead of comple\u00ad menting the performance, they seem more like elaborate cliver\u00ad sionary tactics. On the second of two nights at Madison Square Garden, the band even dispatched severa! undothed&#8217; women across\u00a0the stage on bicycles during &#8220;Far Bottomed Girls.&#8221; How far will Queen go to keep people from noticing that it&#8217;s not only the bi\u00adcyling beauties who are bare?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"2416a19e08873d0076105f82e7f970da\" data-index=\"3\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6280590296994447\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- stretto -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:500px;height:100px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6280590296994447\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"5886106757\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s and interesting article about Queen performing in NY in 1978. Enjoy!! From Rolling Stone Magazine, Jan. 25th 1979. Why<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-queen-in-the-press"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queenmuseum.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}