Queen Nation Rocks Fremont Street
One of the awesome things about living in Las Vegas is there’s always stuff to do. For free! As you all know I’m a big music fan and go check out live bands every chance I get.
One that I saw was coming was the Queen tribute band “Queen Nation” . They were playing for a few days downtown on Fremont St. & I went down and checked them out. Out West there’s a ton of great tribute bands, the Atomic Punks being the most well known one. I had never heard of Queen Nation before but I figured what the hell, why not go see them. I’m glad I did! They kicked ass.
As you may or may not know, Queen was one of the biggest and best bands to come from the 70’s and 80’s, having several huge hits such as “Another One Bites The Dust”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, and the sports anthem “we Will Rock You.” Unfortunately, lead singer Freddie Mercury died of complications from AIDS in 1991. (Coincedently, Kiss’s drummer Eric Carr, who replaced original drummer Peter Criss, died on the same day of cancer, however, his passing was overshadowed by Freddie’s. Still it was a tough day for Rock ‘n’ roll.) He was one of the best frontman the rock world had ever seen, both vocally and visually. So, needless to say, a tough act to follow!
But Queen Nation came very close to the real thing. The singer did a fantastic job recreating the presence of Freddie, never an easy thing. He even resembled him to a certain extent The guitarist did an excellent job of pulling off Brian May, replicating his signature stage moves and even though he plays left-handed, he had one of Brian’s well known custom model guitars and his trademark curly hair. He was a great player, recreating his parts pretty much note-for-note.
The rest of the band was excellent too. The drummer had a flashy sparkle finish kit and the raspy voice Roger Taylor is known for. The bass player, while not really a look a like for John Deacon, covered his melodic bass parts with ease.
I’ve always been a huge Queen fan and they’re one of the bands I never got to see, being too young at the time they stopped touring. But Queen Nation did a tremendous job pulling off Queen’s trademark layered sound. They really are worth seeing if you ever get the chance!
I forgot to bring my real camera but I got some ok shots from my cell phone. Here ya go!
