Roger Taylor rocks the Usher Hall
Queen drummer Roger Taylor played Edinburgh last night, his first show in the city in over 25 years. The man can still rock and roll with the best of them.
Besides being Queen’s drummer and writer of such hits as ‘Radio Ga Ga’ and ‘A Kind Of Magic’, Roger Taylor has released seven albums under his own name. While his solo songs might not be as well known to the average punter as those of bandmates Freddie Mercury (‘Living On My Own’, ‘Barcelona’) or Brian May (‘Driven By You’, ‘Too Much Love Will Kill You’), one could make the case that his oeuvre is the strongest of the three. He was the first in the band to release solo material, beginning with the single ‘I Wanna Testify’ in 1977 and then the album Fun In Space in 1981.
Taylor’s latest album, Violence Insane in a Beautiful World, is the impetus for a short tour of the UK, which made a stop at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall last night (22 September). The show opened with a banger in ‘Strange Frontier’, one of his classic 80s tracks, bleakly anthemic and imbued with Cold War angst (‘Some day soon they’ll drop the big one / No more Dad and no more Mum’). This was followed by ‘Nation of Haircuts’, a satire of the superficiality of late-90s Britain (‘We don’t make ships and we don’t make cars, but we look real good hanging out in bars’). A strong start.
Taylor has always been a superb vocalist, having sung his own songs on Queen records throughout the 70s, and provided strong backing vocals during live shows. He remains in fine voice, most evident last night on quieter numbers such as his lovely cover of John Lennon’s song ‘Jealous Guy’ (accompanied on piano by multi-instrumentalist Tina Keys). Some of the higher notes on older tunes like ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ and ‘Man On Fire’ might not be quite so readily attainable these days, but it would be unfair to expect any singer to have the same range as they did 40 or 50 years ago.
The new songs really shine live. ‘Violence Insane’ is the darkest thing he’s released since ‘Nazis 1994’, and it hit hard live, with its ominous pulsing beat, swirling synths and darkly distorted vocals. The vibe of it seems entirely apropos to the messed-up world in which we find ourselves. Its opposite number is ‘A Beautiful World’, featuring the Ndlovu Youth Choir from South Africa, written from the point of view of an alien looking down on Earth. ‘Don’t fuck it up,’ Taylor pleads. He took to the drum kit during this song and peppered fills over the gently shuffling groove.
Taylor has never shied away from penning songs about subjects and figures that irk him. Two numbers in this category (about ‘a couple of c**ts’) were featured in the show: ‘Dear Mr Murdoch’, originally from 1994, and ‘Chump’, from Violence Insane…. (Can you guess who the latter might be about?) To lift the mood, he followed with ‘Under Pressure’, the 1981 collaboration between Queen and David Bowie.
The other Queen tracks in the set list were ‘These Are The Days Of Our Lives’, ‘Rock It (Prime Jive)’ (sung by drummer Tyler Warren), ‘A Kind Of Magic’, and, to close, ‘Radio Ga Ga’. And from his solo catalogue: ‘Surrender’ (featuring a lovely vocal duet with Tina Keys), ‘I See You Now’, ‘Absolutely Anything’, ‘Don’t Photograph Food’, and ‘Come On Summer (It’s Party Time)’ (also featuring the South African choir, who were not present at the gig, but who will appear on stage at the London show on the 29th). Besides ‘Jealous Guy’, the evening’s other cover was Led Zeppelin’s ‘Rock and Roll’.
In conclusion, it would be fair to call his first show in Edinburgh since 1999 a success. The sell-out audience was really into it, and Taylor and his band (which also includes Spike Edney on keyboards, Christian Mendoza on guitar and Neil Fairclough on bass) were on form and looked to be having fun.
It’s great to see that, after a career spanning 50+ years, Taylor is as creative and up for performing as ever. He doesn’t seem to have lost any of the drive and enthusiasm that sustained him during the early, lean years of Queen, when he scraped a living running a second-hand clothes stall with Freddie Mercury in London’s Kensington Market. He doesn’t need the money now, obviously, so it’s all about the music. And he might not be done yet: in an interview with Billboard he said he hasn’t ruled out another album at some point in the future. Nice! Keep on rockin’, Rog.
Related post: Hand-written lyrics for lost Freddie Mercury songs up for auction.