Watched the Party at the Palace DVD (to be honest, I skipped past about 50% of it) over the weekend, which was the 2002 Queen's Jubilee concert commemorating her 50 years on the throne. Some (albeit 2-years-late) thoughts:
- The UK sure has gone downhill in terms of its musical exports. Gone are the days of the Beatles, Stones, Bowie, Pink Floyd, and Zeppelin... the modern British acts who performed included Atomic Kitten, S Club 7, Will Young, and Blue, all of whom lacked any noticeable talent.
- Obviously I'm biased, being such a huge fan, but Brian Wilson really did steal the show. Surprisingly, he was given the longest set of the night: 4 songs, when artists such as Rod Stewart and Eric Clapton only got 1 (even Paul McCartney only played 3, 2 of which were giant group sing-alongs). Brian's voice was strong, his band was tight (even with intrusions by Emma Bunton, Atomic Kitten, and Cliff Richard during "Good Vibrations"), and after "California Girls" he displayed the biggest smile he's had since the 70's. Of course it vanished and his look of tremendous discomfort returned during the group finale of "Hey Jude" (he didn't even attempt to sing), but he nailed it when it mattered.
- Queen's set included a terrible plug for the musical We Will Rock You, when the cast stormed the stage for "Bohemian Rhapsody." Their costumes were a cross between Road Warrior and Fraggle Rock. It has the potential to be the worst theatrical show ever (and based on some posts from this thread, I'm not the only one who thinks so). We'll find out when it supposedly hits Broadway in the near future.
- My new celebrity crush is Andrea Corr. Sure, I've never heard a Corrs song before, and their cover of "The Long & Winding Road" for the concert wasn't great. But when she sings, her Irish accent bubbles to the surface in certain syllables, and... well, look at her.
- The song selection by many artists was quite bizarre. Besides the proliferation of covers by artists with vast catalogs (Annie Lennox doing "Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves," the aforementioned Corrs, Rod Stewart doing "Handbags and Gladrags"), many of the songs seemed wildly inappropriate in a concert aimed at the Queen. Sure, Ray Davies singing "Lola" was fantastic, but does the Queen want to hear about transvestites? Or hear Tom Jones croon "Sex Bomb?"
- Dame Shirley Bassey's performance of "Goldfinger" played more like a Maya Rudolph parody than the actual thing.
- One of the more bizarre things one can see is Phil Collins wailing on drums during an Ozzy Osbourne performance of "Paranoid."