Did you ever go to see them live? It was a hoot. When they did that song, BR, which they could not do - they (and this is the truth) would leave the stage, and play the tape. And lights would go off, the sound system was cranking out at 110 db, and there were in the back drinking tea.
But, for the rest of the show, Freddie had about as good a set of pipes as any rock singer, and he could bring it live, for sure on that. Though the backstage scene was a bit different gender-wise then most band's backstages. Let's just say, it was not a good place to pick up girls. Or as my buddy says "no band was more perfectly named."
For his part, Freddie once said:
I thought up the name Queen. It's just a name, but it's very regal obviously, and it sounds splendid, It's a strong name, very universal and immediate. It had a lot of visual potential and was open to all sorts of interpretations. I was certainly aware of gay connotations, but that was just one facet of it.
They were good, but I wonder how well that would go over these days though, outside of a Vegas/Hard Rock nostalgia deal. But I'm ever hopeful that had they stuck around long enough they might have got back to the sound of Queen II, and the third record, Sheer Heart Attack and stuff like Killer Queen, Brighton Rock, Flick of the Wrist along with Stone Cold Crazy (flat out, one of the most rockin songs ever put down) and the immortal She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettoes).
I thought by the end they had got more caught up in the show - the production - then in the music, and that often tends not to be a good thing. That clip you put up is considered by many to be one of the first true music videos, something created for that medium (TV) and that alone. It's set up like a concert, minus the audience.
One of the reasons that the Queen sound is so unique is that when he was young Brian May couldn't afford a guitar the quality he wanted, so with a lot of help from dad, he built his own. He played his hand-built "Red Special" most of the time.
But go back and listen to Sheer Heart Attack, it still rocks out.
