In concert in Paris, Queen like kings at Bercy

“A Night At The Opera”: this is the title of Queen's album released in 1975, the one featuring the mythical song “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

And it is really to a night at the opera that we are apparently invited, to see what awaits the spectator who enters the Accor Arena in Paris on this evening of Wednesday July 13.

The screens arranged around the stage indeed give the impression that there is a balcony and dressing rooms behind the musicians, an effect as pretty as it is brilliant.

Another surprise, the whole audience is seated, even in the pit, which rarely happens in this room.

Despite the huge success of the film "Bohemian Rhapsody", which made (re) discover the band's music to younger generations, the audience is mainly made up of fans, old enough to have known the group when the late Freddie Mercury, disappeared in 1991, was still part of it…

Brian May in top form, Adam Lambert a little less

Queen also makes its entrance, not on a hit, but on a good old rock song dating from 1974, "Now I'm Here", then turns squarely to hard rock with "Hammer To Fall".

The guitarist, Brian May, on whom time doesn't seem to have any hold, is already venturing on the advance of the stage which brings him right in the middle of the crowd.

He is in top form, which is apparently not the case of the singer, Adam Lambert.

His performance seems to us much worse than the one we saw at the Zenith in Paris, in 2015, less exuberant, less talented voice, even if the American sometimes gives the shivers.

Same problem of voice besides for Roger Taylor, impeccable behind his drums, but who massacres the singing of "I'm In Love With My Car" to want to swing his words too quickly.

Shame…

Let's end this crying office with our last grievance of the evening, May's long guitar solo, with a visual effect that presents him as if he were on the surface of an asteroid.

Apart from the tribute to his doctorate in astrophysics, the sequence offers little interest.

Freddie Mercury's spirit still hovers

Fortunately, there is everything else.

Including, of course, a royal, even imperial repertoire, on which the two founding members of Queen and Lambert are supported by the group's historic keyboardist ("He's been there for a thousand years", jokes May), Spike Edney, bassist Neil Fairclough, and drummer and percussionist Tyler Warren.

It includes the magic songs of the 1970s, known as "Somebody To Love", "Killer Queen", "Don't Stop Me Now", "Tie Your Mother Down".

Or less famous, but just as wonderful, such as “In The Lap Of The Gods… Revisited”.

The hits are not forgotten, with the disco "Another One Bites The Dust", the rockabilly "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", or the always strange "Under Pressure", not really magnified this evening by the duo Lambert / Taylor in place original Mercury/Bowies.

Mercury, whose spirit still hovers above the group, and whose images are projected to us from time to time, notably during one of his famous vocal improvisations between two tracks, where he challenged the public to follow him in his delusions...

Moving acoustic sequence during "Love Of My Life" and "'39", May finding himself alone on the proscenium and asking the spectators to turn on the lamp of their cellphone, triggering a literally magical atmosphere in the room.

For "Bohemian Rhapsody", you have to wait until the end.

The band plays the whole song as usual, except for the central part, the operatic choruses, provided by the period clip.

Always a great moment.

And especially the worthy conclusion of a concert which lasts all the same for two and a quarter hours!

Except that there are still two pearls missing from the Queen's necklace, and not the least.

Don't worry, they're on call.

“We Will Rock You” and its atomic percussions and the anthem “We Are The Champions”.

On this eve of July 14, Republic Day, we all leave royalists...