A rousing tribute to one of rock music’s greatest showmen and a sharp reminder of how a great band should sound.
The decline of modern pop music will force many to look back to a time when vinyl was king. When the highlight of the week was the chart countdown on Sunday evenings. Queen were emblematic of this period when they released ground breaking albums and singles. They purveyed a unique brand of rock infused with elements of ballet, opera, rockabilly and funk. With the brilliant Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon in the engine room they had the inimitable Freddie Mercury as frontman. Since Freddie’s death surviving members of Queen have occasionally reunited for live shows; and there is the perennially successful ‘We Will Rock You’ to keep the songs alive. But it is the tribute industry that keeps the live vibe going on a regular basis.
The second Tuesday in November brought Radio Gaga to the Adelphi Theatre. Probably not the most obvious rock venue and curiously the amps appeared much lower than usual; no bassline thumping in the chest this time. Even so, it didn’t stop five extremely talented performers from delivering a thoroughly entertaining show. A tight four piece band played up a storm as the hits kept on coming. With Richard Ashford on guitar, Jon Caulton on Bass, Michael Richards on drums and Ben Parkinson on keyboards they were more than capable stand-ins for the real McCoy. And upfront on lead vocals we had Mark Sanders as Freddie Mercury.
Sanders affected a pretty good reading of Mercury’s mannerisms and vocal style. He even managed to hit some pretty high notes on the scale, which is remarkable considering he was nursing a bad cold. Any tall man with dark hair and a moustache will be reminiscent of a legendary sit-com character. Sanders demonstrated a refreshing lack of pretension when he introduced himself as ‘Basil Fawlty’ and saw the joke in everyone’s head – top man!
It was an excellent set packed with all the songs you’d expect to hear. There were some really interesting segues between tracks; for example ‘Now I’m here’ flows well into ‘Keep yourself alive’ and provides space for more songs. Some were particularly well received as ‘We will rock you’ and ‘Another one bites the dust’ raised the roof. But everything built to a crescendo as a storming version of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ closed the evening. Radio Gaga display excellent musicianship, and coupled with an engaging frontman rise above many tribute acts currently on the circuit.
Review by: Brian Penn
Playhouse Pickings 