The singer Brian May called the closest to Freddie Mercury: “He has enormous power”
As long as the world keeps turning, there’s a good chance that Brian May will never find another singer like Freddie Mercury.
Even though many people have taken countless cues from what the Queen frontman could do during his lifetime, there’s always a certain magic to seeing footage of all four of them onstage that was never going to be eclipsed by Paul Rodgers or Adam Lambert. That said, it’s not like May couldn’t see instances where a singer could manage to carry on the kind of vocal power that his singing friend had back when they were making their classics.
But whatever Queen ends up going out now, it seems more out of respect for the fans that they aren’t billed strictly as Queen. Mercury was simply too big a presence to just erase from their history by getting someone else, and even when they are working with other people, a lot of them end up bringing something unique to the table that no one else could have done. Rodgers was a big influence on Mercury, but his album with the remaining members felt more like a celebration of their blues-rock roots.
And when you look at what they’re doing, it’s not like everyone’s getting the authentic Queen experience with John Deacon having stepped back. It’s understandable that he wouldn’t want to be a part of the band after losing Mercury, and since he was already the most reserved member of the group, chances are he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life being asked about his deceased friend while parading around with a new singer.
Which probably explains why the Concert for Freddie was a real clean break for Deacon. This was meant to celebrate everything that the band had achieved and give them some closure by playing songs with all of Mercury’s influences and musical descendants. But not everyone was going to end up sounding as good as Mercury. James Hetfield is a man of many talents, but it was almost a novelty hearing him sing ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ compared to what Elton John did when he performed with the band.
There were some true legends onstage that night trying to do those songs justice, but given what George Michael did with ‘Somebody to Love’, you would have sworn that he had been living and breathing that song his entire life. He had been a Queen superfan ever since he was a kid, and while there were many times where the audience was overpowering the band, May had to admit that Michael knocked it out of the park when singing those gospel-style runs Mercury came up with.
Compared to what someone like Axl Rose did that day, May felt that Michael was the closest that he ever got to feeling the same energy he felt listening to Mercury, saying, “In addition to the great delicacy which he has — the great control, great dynamics — he has enormous power. And from the moment he stepped into the rehearsal room and was doing ‘Somebody to Love’, we went, ‘Whoa.’I think in most people’s feeling, he got closest to the range of Freddie himself.”
But even Michael had to give credit to the rest of the audience for making the song so special. Anyone could have predicted the crowd singing along to the dramatic gospel build-up during the bridge, but when looking at the live footage, the fact that everyone could sing the bluesy scale that Mercury does was a good indication that there was something on that field from the minute that the night started.
There was a morose feeling in the air, knowing that a legend was gone, but judging by Michael’s performance, that didn’t mean that every single musical virtuoso had left us. It was all about passing the torch to the next generation, and Michael seemed to live out the rest of his recording days trying as hard as he could to make the kind of music that Mercury would have been proud of.
