QUEEN’S HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY

LIVE IN BUDAPEST

REVIEW

By: Fridae Mattas

Last Thursday September 20th I was invited to the screening of this newly restored concert classic. As a fan of Queen I was more than happy to attend and see how they remastered this old school concert. Queen was popular before my time but I came to know their songs as I grew up realizing I knew a lot more Queen songs than I thought. I remember being fond of Queen as a kid because they were one of the very few rock bands I was allowed to listen to. My parents were obsessed with Abba, I like a few of their tunes but even in diapers they were just too cheesy for me. Its pretty amazing how much a person remembers from infancy, I can recall all the way back to when they took my hospital picture not too long after I was born. The only reason I remember that day is because I did not like the flash of the camera, it hurt my eyes. My expression in that photograph is absolutly hilarious to me, from the look of annoyance on my crinkled browless watermelon face to my tiny fists raised and ready to fight.  My ears discovered Queen about the same time they did Bon Jovi, my Dad was blasting “Another One Bites The Dust” on his 8 track the one time he drove me to Ballet when I was three. Since then I have been intrigued with the Queen I heard and to this day I still love listening to old school Queen tunes. My Brother has most of my Dad’s old records including a bunch of Queen vinyls but none of the 8 tracks survived our multiple moves.

The Hungarian Rhapsody screening was only to be for that day, recently it was announced that it will be released globally in select theaters starting September 20th and available on DVD to purchase in November. Having seen other Queen concerts on TV I was excited to see this one, especially because it was on the big screen. I wish I was old enough to have seen Queen live in action fronted by the late great Freddie Mercury because he truly knew the meaning of entertainment. I have not yet seen any frontman with the charisma, chops or enthusiasm Mercury had on the stage. Not one lead vocalist out of the thousands of bands has come close to the level of Freddie Mercury live. These days, too many bands and artists rely heavily on the voice box and autotune. If you can’t sing, don’t.

You can tell the footage is old, the colour correction on the compiled interview portion could have been done a little more, it was a lot more dull compared to the actual show footage. While watching the set on the big screen I noticed the crowd was huge! This was filmed at an enormous open air venue in Budapest filled with 80,000 screaming Queen fans who sung along to each and every song. The set included most of their hits, which was a great joy to my ears but I did notice Mercury carried the band. The others had their moments with a few solo’s sprinkled here and there but it was Freddie who did all the work when it came to engaging the crowd. I hope to see Queen live one day but I don’t know if I will ever be comfortable watching their classic songs being performed by someone other than Freddie Mercury.

For all the Queen fans around the world, you need to go see this remastered live performance on the big screen! Thanks to www.Eagle-Rock.com and Cineplex for the tickets and swag, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves as I’m sure everyone else who caught the screening did. Find out exactly where you can watch Queen’s Hungarian Rhapsody here or hit up www.Queenonline.com.

COPYRIGHT © 2012 FRIDAE MATTAS. All Rights Reserved