Massively late Christmas post!

You guys! Wow! So sorry yet again for the delay in posting! Life continues to be busy!

This past December, Gunpowder Gelatine reached out to me and my friend George and asked if... are you sitting down for this? They asked if we could JOIN THEM ONSTAGE FOR TWO PERFORMANCES!!1!!1111!!! December 10th was a benefit to an organization that is very near and dear to my heart - The Somerville Homeless Coalition, and the following night they'd be opening for El Vez. Before anyone gets more excited than is reasonable, George and I were only needed for two songs: Billy Squier's "Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You", and Queen's own "Thank God It's Christmas".

Neither track is what I could honestly call a favorite, but I was ready to take a couple hits for an organization that helped me get my shit together, and also sing on the stage at Johnny D's while it was still possible with a band I adore, and a friend I don't otherwise get to spend much time with more than once a week. So the good definitely outweighed the surprisingly terribly-written B-side!

Plus I don't often get to tell bouncers, "I'm with the band" to gain access!

The benefit on the 10th was really quite something! The Boston area is a vast wealth of talent and artistry, so that really shouldn't be a shock to anyone who spends more than five seconds here. I didn't even mind the marching jazz band (brass instruments in an in-person live setting give me a headache, even if the player is really good) Gunpowder Gelatine had told us to arrive by maybe 10:00 or so, and that we'd be getting on by 11:00... I can't remember at this point so you'll have to forgive me if I don't have the exact times right. Either way, I think we actually finally got on at 11:30. This was not a typical, "everyone get hammered and rock out to good tunes" kind of deal. It was more, "buy some booze, but also buy raffle tickets and stuff because being homeless sucks, especially at Christmas", so there was no particular concern about the audience response to TGIC. I was more worried about nailing the harmony on the chorus! And I was super nervous about the Billy Squier song! I don't think I did as well as I'd like on either track, but I also didn't spend a whole lot of time rehearsing them on my own, so...

The next night was Gunpowder Gelatine in "opening band" mode, so the overall crowd feel was a little more familiar to me. George spent a bit of time trying to find someone in the audience to take pictures when it would be time for the both of us to get on stage for the sake of this blog and also bragging rights, and I think he picked the right person. He had his eye on someone else, initially, but when Gunpowder Gelatine got up on stage she kept trying to get either of us to dance with her. At one point, she stuck herself between us and kept bumping each of our hips! Thank G-d I was still holding onto my crutches, because she would have knocked me over! By the time I was ready to call for an adult to rescue me and George from the non-consensual touching and hip checks, she seemed to have gotten the hint that we weren't interested (we couldn't not talk about it later, and we found out we were both on the exact same page). Thankfully, there was no serious harm done for anybody!

Onto some pictures that I'm going to credit to George all the way through because I apparently didn't get that stranger's info! (Oh, right. Gunpowder Gelatine had a very Christmas-y dress code that I, of course, didn't follow because I guess I'm not a team player)

I'd like to take this time to attribute some of my awkward posture to the fact that that stage is SMALL, and there wasn't much room to move without accidentally knocking into someone.

Oh! And then a friend of Bethany's from high school(..???) joined the band to sing Under Pressure! It was AWESOME!

George and I hung out with the band for a bit during El Vez's set, but neither of us was really feeling it, so we wound up leaving to get a late dinner. Any other time, though! I'm sure I would have had a lot of fun seeing him!

I should take this time to really thank Johnny D's for being such an awesome place. I obviously haven't been attending since its beginnings, but it will always hold a very special place in my heart!

It was a worthwhile experience!

HalloQueen with Gunpowder Gelatine and Da Rods

Usually when I apologize for lack of posts due to being busy, I'm not typically as busy as I've been this time around! But thankfully I had a minute to breathe and rock out last night with Gunpowder Gelatine and Faces tribute band, Da Rods with my friend George (hi, George!)!

I was worried I wouldn't be able to make it to the gig at all because The Milky Way is a pain to get to from my area on public transportation. Unlike New York City, Boston's public transportation is not 24/7. Like, they only expanded their hours to 2am this past year or so..? I don't go out often enough to give exact dates. But anyway! It was a huge help and extra motivator to get to hang out with George. Even though I hate him a little bit because he saw Queen in Germany in 1986.

Anyway! Again! Da Rods kicked things off and killed it! I must confess that my Rod Stewart/Faces listening has been horrifically confined to one or two songs I hear on the radio sometimes. So they've done me a great service because now I'm looking up Faces on Spotify. And yes, they played Stay With Me, and it was glorious!

I've mentioned it in the past, but I feel compelled to note the difference in crowd energy compared to at Johnny D's. Not that it's bad at Johnny D's! It's just different at The Milky Way and I kind of wish that difference - whatever it is - was the standard in Greater Boston. (Seriously, Johnny D's, I love you and I'm in complete denial that you'll be closing next year)

Gunpowder Gelatine came on stage dressed up like the Radio Ga Ga video, and they've said that they never actually performed Radio Ga Ga before, but I'm really sure that they did the first time I saw them. I distinctly remember being excited to do the synchronized clapping... although I might have been only one of a few in the audience complying.

Their set was, as always, excellent, and their sound was super tight. Their unofficial cinematographer was in the audience, so hopefully he got some really great video that I can post here eventually. I'm always really excited when they perform I Want It All because the audience always responds even though it's a really obscure song in the US and not usually known by more casual Queen fans. They've also recently added Bicycle Race to their set. I'm not sure if I've noted that before because I've seen them a number of times and then never wind up writing about it. For instance, I saw them last time at Johnny D's on September 25th, and Queen played on Saturday Night Live on that day in 1982, so I thought that was really cool :-)

George has given me permission to post the pictures he took, because I've since given up trying to take pictures because they always look shitty - even with a digital camera.

You may have noticed that I keep my hair closely shaved these days. I'm starting to go bald and I'm leaning into it because a) I'm not bothered by it, and b) I don't think any other hairstyle will work without it looking like I'm in denial a la John Travolta.

Another "sorry I've been absent" post

Life's been busy and exciting, but don't fret! That Queen I review I've been promising for over a year (sorry, Toni!) is *still* in the works! It's one of those albums where I shift from "this album is terrific!" to "meh," and I don't want to put "meh" thoughts down if that's not always where I'm at. I feel like that would be a disservice and an insult to fans who might actually give a shit about what I think. But let's look at the positives:

- I never committed to any sort of regular schedule, so I'm not *technically* letting anyone down if I don't post right away!

- It's Freddie's 69th birthday! I don't think he'd be thrilled at being that actual age, but I can see him giggling over the '69' part all the same :-)

I don't think I'll be doing much to celebrate this year. I dressed up last year, and only then learned that the eyeliner I used to draw the mustache was annoyingly difficult to remove. But I'm sure that's a major selling point for people who regularly wear makeup for its intended purpose.

Play The Game "Expert" word search guide

Queen: Play The Game’s “Expert” level word searches have players figuring out which words to look for, rather than look off a list. And this is to help folks who might be having a hard time with that. If you need this, enjoy! If not, thanks for taking a peek anyway :-)

Please note that I’m in no way affiliated with anyone important (Queen, Soshi Games, etc). I’m just a hardcore fan doing this out of the goodness of his heart. Updates will be made as often as I’m able to post/Soshi Games updates/etc. Stay tuned!

SPREAD YOUR WINGS
Ambition
Better
Boss
Dead
Dreaming
Emerald
Evenings
Life
Luck
Sammy
Show
Spread
Sweeping
Together
Wings
Yourself

--

FIGHT FROM THE INSIDE
Another
Attack
Boy
Fight
Fool
Free
Hands
Inside
Line
Money
Picture
Think
Spinner
Streets
Sucker
Teenage

--

WAS IT ALL WORTH IT
Bali
Breathing
Circuit
Counting
Dandy
Dali
Experience
Godforsaken
Happy
Hungry
Money
Sinking
Trumpet
Vicious
Worthwhile

--

I'M GOING SLIGHTLY MAD
Banana
Boiling
Dance
Deck
Honest
Kettle
Knitting
Mad
Needle
Outside
Shilling
Shipwreck
Short
Slightly
Temperature
Thousand

--

SELECTED CITIES AND TOWNS FROM 1975 SHOWS
Boston
Bournemouth
Calgary
Coventry
Edmonton
Fukuoka
Gothemburg
Hague [Error]
Helsinki [Error]
Kobe
Lewiston
Manchester
Nagoya
Passaic
Tokyo
Trenton

--

AMERICAN CITIES FROM THE 1978 JAZZ TOUR
Boston
Chicago
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Dallas
Detroit
Kalamazoo
Lakeland
Madison
Memphis
Miami
Nashville
Philadelphia
Portland
Providence
Uniondale

--

FROM THE 'QUEEN' ALBUM: LIAR
Believes
Deceives
Everything
Father
Kneel
Liar
Mars
Mercury
Nobody
Pray
Raised
Sailed
Seas
Sinned
Sire
Slave

--

FROM 'THE MIRACLE' ALBUM: KHASHOGGI'S SHIP
Blitzed
Eclipse
Everybody
Fist
Gun
Head
Holiday
Honey
Khasoggi
Midnight
Party
Phased
Sexy
Ship
Sucker
Wine

--

PEOPLE THAT APPEARED ON STAGE WITH QUEEN
Danny
Edney
Fairclough
Fisher
Fred
Jamie
Mandel
Miranda
Morgan
Moses
Neil
Rufus
Spike
Taylor

--

SELECTED STUDIO PERSONELL
Anthony
Austin
Baker
Cable
Croydon
Etchells
Lyons
Mack
Macrea
Richards
Roy
ShirleySmith [No hyphen]
Stone
Thomas
Workman

Play The Game

While it doesn't lack the odd bug or a few errors, and won't function on my tablet for some reason, the Play The Game app is what I've been craving in Queen trivia for years. Because I'm getting tired of being so rightfully jaded about various quizes and videos online claiming to have "little-known" facts that I've known since childhood. I get that those things are largely for very casual fans, but still...

Anyway! I'm actually learning things so far (especially in the tour section), and I can wait to see this thing continue to develop!

January 2015 issue of Classic Rock

Not a whole lot has been going on for me Queen-wise, but it's been one big thing after another in other aspects. But that's not important here! It had taken some doing, but I managed to get the January issue of Classic Rock in mid-March! I normally wait until a local-ish Barnes & Noble has what I want in stock, but I decided to order online this time just to see which is actually worth it.

I placed an order at Magazine Cafe, and I had expected it to be a fairly quick process since it's based in New York and I'm somewhere close to Boston. I wound up emailing them on the first of the month because I'd still not received any sort of confirmation or delivery estimate since placing the order on 18 February. They got back to me very quickly that they needed to get more in stock, but I still found it annoying that they couldn't explain that right away so I wouldn't keep worrying. But I did eventually get it! And I was really impressed with the article. Probably because Brian and Roger shared similar views with me on their solo careers post-Freddie and that things with Adam Lambert continue to go really well.

Adam is quoted as saying, "I'm not replacing Freddie. I'm trying to keep the memory alive, and remind people how amazing he was, without imitating him."

I cringed a little bit while reading that part because it's there in black and white that nobody's trying to replace Freddie, just as Paul Rodgers used to say he wasn't replacing Freddie, but people out there will continue to insist that that's what's happening.

Brian and Roger also touched on trying to be solo acts after Freddie died - both of them insisting that Queen, as a band, could never be. And, again, in black and white, they both made it clear that they wanted to keep Queen going (with John Deacon's blessing) it became impossible to deny that they needed to continue. From what very few videos I've seen of some of their solo concerts, it seemed to me that their fans got the most excited when they'd perform songs from Queen. And when I first started venturing on the Queenzone forums, I'd see people posting that they'd wish the rest of the band would just keep going as Queen, and maybe take turns on lead vocals, etc. "They should resurrect Queen for Freddie's sake!" and then, "Why are they doing things under the Queen name again? That's an insult to Freddie!"

It never ceases to amaze me in the worst way.

Even with the few bumps in the road over the last 20+ years - 5ive, Robbie Williams, and Paul Rodgers just because that phase is now considered by Brian and Roger to be Queen's embarrassing prom picture, I have to give them credit for at least trying to incorporate some of the latest music trends while still being true to their signature sound throughout the years (even if some of them were not great). They're not the weird older guys who cite their high school years the best of their lives, hanging out on campus trying to impress teenagers.

That said, I'm hopeful that they'll write new material with Adam. The Cosmos Rocks with Paul Rodgers was pretty one-sided, but I think Adam might be able to contribute some more dynamic bits so any album(s?) they might do together wouldn't be so blues-heavy.

ADATR or NOTW?

I stopped in Newbury Comics - Harvard Square Store​ last month, and there was a woman who seemed to be talking to someone next to her near the vinyl records. I perked up as soon as she mentioned Queen​ because, duh. I made my way over to her to hopefully offer suggestions. It turns out she was on the phone via headset, and the guy next to her was just a guy next to her. The only two records under the Queen label were A Day At The Races and News Of The World.

I feel really terrible for bothering this woman and possibly coming off as creepy when I told her I loved Queen (it was only then that I realized she was on the phone), but the person on the other end of her line not knowing which of those albums to pick got me thinking...

If you could only pick ADATR or NOTW to introduce someone to Queen, which would you pick? And no, there's no possible way to get around it or access any other media in this scenario. Your friend in this scenario bases their taste in music on the first two seconds of the first song on an album because this friend grew up in an anti-music/TV/internet/anything remotely fun household and is only just starting to branch out, but really can't venture all that far from their comfort zone of talk radio and audio books because they still haven't completely forgiven you for what has since become known as "The Simon & Garfunkel​ Incident", and there's no hope for even a gray area when they decide whether to write the album and band off. You have to give them a compelling and well-thought out argument. I'd love to read your responses!