The DVD boasts an exceptional video transfer that easily copes with the extraordinary Queen light show. The director also did an excellent job capturing the electric atmosphere and emotional impact of the performance using an assortment of great camera angles. A superb PCM stereo track is the default option, but if you can, go with the powerful DTS surround track, as it reproduces the live atmosphere much better. The only extra is the bonus track "Imagine", which was a performance at London's Hyde Park on July 15th, 2005 that was dedicated to those who lost their lives in the London terrorist bombings earlier that same month.
For those of you who never got to see Queen live, or have simply just really missed these guys since they called it quits in 1991, Return Of The Champions is a great way to fill that void. This tour is still going strong, as of this writing, and I'd definitely recommend checking it out.
Set List
Reaching Out
Tie Your Mother Down
I Want To Break Free
Fat Bottomed Girls
Wishing Well
Another One Bites The Dust
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Say It’s Not True
‘39
Love Of My Life
Hammer To Fall
Feel Like Making Love
Let There Be Gene
I’m In Love With My Car
Guitar Solo
Last Horizon
These Are The Days Of Our Lives
Radio Ga Ga
Can’t Get Enough
A Kind Of Magic
I Want It All
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Show Must Go On
All Right Now
We Will Rock You
We Are The Champions
God Save The Queen
Performance 8/10
Production 10/10
Read all of my DVD concert reviews at Roy's Reviews
Article comments
1 - NO mention of John Deacon? THey ALWAYS forget the bass player!
Seriously, thanks for the review.
2 - Barry Stoller
Hearing "Feel Like Making Love" and "Can't Get Enough" at a "Queen" concert shows that Brian May has obviously donated his brain to science - prematurely.
Queen, to their credit, understood the high-wattage needs of their mainstream audience yet, at their best, were never afraid to poke some self-conscious fun at themselves and their idiom. "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Radio Ga Ga" are the complete inverse of the humorless, unthinking Bad Company.
BTW, I noticed notice the absence of "Somebody To Love"; as a "straight" (no irony or mockery) Queen tune, perfect for a "soulful rocker," I can only conclude Paul Rodgers didn't feel man enough to take on Mercury's greatest vocal.
3 - Christopher Rose
WHAT?
Brian May has the debatable right to get someone in to tour Queen but then allowing this sad stand-in to bring some of his old Bad Company rubbish with him? Now THAT is blasphemy!
May all involved with this horrendous travesty be forced to listen to elevator music for ever. A curse on all your houses!!
4 - Paul Roy
I didn't realize I was the only one who enjoys both Queen AND Bad Company. I just never thought I'd see their songs them being played together by a band made up of Queen and Paul Rodgers, but I guess that is why this venture is called Queen + Paul Rodgers.
5 - JR
Actually, there are two of us.
6 - Vern Halen
I like both BC and Queen. This album makes me wonder what Queen might have sounded like without Freddie Mercury - perhaps a simplified blues rock band. There's precedent - "Sleeping On the Sidewalk" from News of the World is certainly in the same blues rock vein as Bad Company. They certainly play the Rodgers' material well anyway.
7 - LE
Maybe its just me but....I really feel that this tour is in bad taste.Freddie Mercury's voice and presence can never be replaced nor should it be attempted in my opinion.
8 - proy1
Queen isn't the first band to carry on after the loss of a key member. Anybody heard of AC/DC?? Thank god they carried on after Bon and gave us perhaps the greatest hard rock album of all time. Too bad Zeppelin didn't do the same. I don't have a problem with this Queen (+ Paul Rodgers) tour at all.
9 - Kate
I have tickets for the Chicago show (3/23) and cannot wait to see the guys! I have both the "Return of the Champions" CD and DVD and love 'em. Paul is not Freddy, but I never got the impressions from various interviews that Brian May or Roger Taylor wanted him to be.
10 - Oleh
Freddie
11 - Larry R
If you can pretend that this is not Queen and Paul Rodgers, and just listen and watch the group as a rock band, you will totally enjoy the experience. It's great music, tastefully done, and totally pleasant. What I call a treatsicle.