Queen + Adam Lambert Deliver a Rhapsodic Show at Madison Square Garden: 5 Best Moments

If there’s one thing that Queen has always understood as a band, it’s the idea of theatrics. That fact certainly didn’t change during their MSG show — at different points in the evening, fans were treated to all manner of spectacles from Lambert, May and Taylor. For “Bicycle Race,” Lambert rose from under the stage on a shimmering chrome motorcycle (straddling a camera on its dashboard all the while); during “Killer Queen,” the singer turned his back to the audience and performed directly into a vanity mirror, primping and preening at every given opportunity; even during “A Kind of Magic,” May managed to conjure up sorcery of his by shooting flares out of the end of his guitar.

At one point late in the show, May let the audience in on secret. “You’re all in very good voice tonight. At Queen shows, we like to hear you,” he said with a cheeky smile. “It’s more fun when there’s a bit of audience participation.” The crowd at MSG certainly delivered on that front; during the band’s opening number “Radio Ga Ga,” the crowd perfectly nailed the hands-up, double-clap choreography for the song’s chorus. When “Fat Bottomed Girls” arrived at its ear-worm chorus, the audience sounded more like a choir than a group of concertgoers. And Lambert certainly facilitated that choral energy for the bridge of “Somebody to Love,” letting the audience take the reins.

In the 53 years since Sir Brian May and Roger Taylor formed Queen with Freddie Mercury, it seems like they’ve only gotten better at their respective skills — and at two points during the evening they got to prove that fact. First, Taylor accompanied a famous video of himself performing a raging timpani solo for their filmed Queen Rock Montreal performance in 1981, smashing his way through a killer drum solo. Later on in the evening, May (literally) rose above the stage for a planetary guitar solo, in which he incorporated bits of classical composer Antonín Dvořák’s “New World Symphony” through a distorted guitar, while glowing planets swirled around his head. Needless to say, both original members showed time and again that they’re not slowing down any time soon.

While the show was filled with excellent, high-production numbers, none came close to matching the majesty of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which the band used as their pre-encore closer. Everything about the number was about as grand as you could hope. The number provided some magical production elements, including a vanishing and suddenly-reappearing May, as well as a lightning quick costume change from Lambert. May and Taylor nailed their respective parts, rocking out and leaning in where appropriate. But the star of the final number was Lambert’s voice — never imitating Mercury, Lambert kept the core spirit of the free-wheeling track alive, letting his stratospheric voice launch “Bohemian Rhapsody” into the heavens.

At no point during their show did Queen + Adam Lambert pull the focus away from the spirit of their enigmatic former frontman. During a solo section in which May performed an acoustic version of “Love of My Life,” he acknowledged that this was “Freddie’s song,” and that “Freddie should be singing it right now.” After introducing his legendary bandmates, Lambert made sure the audience knew whose shoes he was filling on stage. “Just know that every time I take this stage, just like all of you and just like these gentlemen, we all have Freddie Mercury in our hearts,” he said.

But the most poignant and fitting tribute to Mercury’s legacy came just moments before the band’s encore, when a video of Mercury performing live appeared on the stage’s scrim. Performing his famous vocal improvisation “Ay-Oh,” in which he quickly runs through a series of riffs and runs while getting the audience to repeat after him, the virtual image of Mercury secured the same command over the crowd gathered in MSG as he did when he was still alive. It was simple, effective, and exactly the kind of tribute you would want to see for an icon like Mercury.

Encore: