The Hallé's Tribute to Queen is A Kind of Magic

On Sunday 29th December, we were lucky enough to get our hands on tickets for the Hallé orchestras final concert of 2024. Read what our reviewer Neil Jones had to say about Hallé - The Music of Queen...


To say that I am a Queen fan would be an understatement, I have collected their records from being a young child in the 1980s right through to the latest Box Set reissue of their eponymous debut album, visiting rare record markets and car boot sales all across Europe in the hope of unearthing some long lost flexi disc single or an LP with an alternative sleeve to that issued in the UK.

I am also a huge fan of the Hallé, Manchester's oldest orchestra, founded in 1858, exactly 110 years before Freddie, Brian, Roger, and John would meet at Ealing Art College. So when it was announced that Stephen Bell would conduct their 2024 season finale with a concert of Queen hits, it was certainly an event I could not miss.

For whatever reason, it is fair to say that classical music, opera, classic drama and, to a lesser extent, ballet has suffered since the COVID Lockdowns with consistently attracting the large audiences they often enjoyed in the past. With over 60% of classical concert goers said to be over 51 years of age (and a large chuck of those aged over 71), there have been many initatives to try and attract a more diverse crowd to safeguard the future of the genre without having to survive on generous sponsors (Siemens in the case of the Hallé), private benefactors or ever dwindling government support (which was absolutely devastated during the past 14 years of Tory cuts). In the words of Queen: "Here's to the future, for the dreams of youth!"

Like Manchester's two other leading orchestras - BBC Philharmonic, who have collaborated with the likes of The 1975 and The xx; and Manchester Camerata, who have become famous for their Haçienda Classical international tours - the Hallé have also excelled in diversifying their repertoire over the years, mixing their more traditional classical programme with popular Christmas concerts, movie and game console soundtrack nights - including a UK arena tour for the 30th anniversary of Jurassic Park last year, - as well as performing orchestral renditions of rock and pop music favourites (what they used to call their Hallé Pops series).     

With every available seat in The Bridgewater Hall completely sold for their tribute to Queen, it is safe to say that the Hallé could have easily sold out extra shows, or at least released the restricted view seats high up among the lighting rig in the two Side Galleries or the back-of-the-heads, behind the orchestra, Choir Seats.

There was a real buzz about the place and concert goers could be overheard in the surrounding bars and restaurants beforehand guessing which songs would make the setlist ("Bohemian Rhapsody","The Show Must Go On", "Who Wants To Live Forever", "Heaven For Everyone", "Barcelona", "You Don't Fool Me", and "Was It All Worth It?" just some of the more obvious orchestral predictions mentioned).

It was also interesting to see whether the audience was primarily here as die hard Queen fan club members, casual Queen Greatest Hits "fans", or the more traditional Hallé and Bridgewater Hall regulars; Princes of The Universe, or Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boys? In truth, it was hard to determine, as the crossover between Queen and classical music would have meant that many attendees fell into more than one segment of the venn diagram.

Interestingly, it also seemed that the higher up the seating plan you went, the younger the audience seemed to become, and while you could say that being in the Stalls was perhaps the safest place to be in Manchester, with every person sat there presumably entitled to a COVID and seasonal flu vaccine booster, there were plenty of floppy hair students, enthusiastic teenagers, younger children and large groups of twenty and thirty year old friends among the Gallery seats, demonstrating that Queen's appeal has passed along the generations. Not that age would be a factor as the show went on; everybody would be up dancing and singing along before the night was out.

In fact, there seemed to be just as much dancing within the orchestra too, as they had really let their hair down, quite literally in the case of many of the wigs on display. From Brian May's curly locks, to Freddie's moustache and signature Magic Tour yellow jacket, the "I'm Going Slightly Mad" bananas and The Game biker leathers, the Hallé's international cast had really got into the spirit of the occasion, with the tongue-in-cheek humour Queen were famous for. The percussion section had even gone as far as dressing up in drag, recreating the iconic "I Want To Break Free" Coronation Street video, complete with fake boobs and mini skirts. They were certainly "having such a good time, they were having a ball!"

The setlist for the night consisted of 23 songs taken from Queen's 1981 Greatest Hits and 1991 Greatest Hits II (the first and tenth best-selling albums in UK chart history with over 11 million combined sales in this country alone). To demonstrate the sheer volume of hits the four talented songwriters had produced, there was no room for their best-selling single, "Another One Bites The Dust," nor other Greatest Hits I & II inclusions like the chart-topping "Under Pressure", "I Want To Break Free", "The Show Must Go On", "One Vision", "I Want It All", "Hammer to Fall", "Now I'm Here", "Friends Will Be Friends", and "The Invisible Man".

There was also no room for any track from Greatest Hits III, which sadly meant no "These Are The Days of Our Lives", "Living on My Own", "The Great Pretender", "Heaven For Everyone", "Princes of The Universe", "Too Much Love Will Kill You" or even "Barcelona", and "Thank God It's Christmas" which both leant themselves to a festive orchestral interpretation. I am sure the Hallé would easily sell out a series of  concerts dedicated to each of the three Queen Greatest Hits albums and still have demand for further fan favourites.

So that possibly has you asking, what was included?

Well, the night got off to a great start with "Innuendo", a goosebump raising rendition of Queen's epic 1991 chart-topping single with its long introduction giving the orchestra chance to show off their skill, and the flamenco guitar section in the middle reinterpreted magnificently by the string section.

Vocals were supplied by West End superstar Alice Fearn, who is perhaps best known for playing captain Beverley Bass in Come from Away and Elphaba in Wicked, or Momsie in the new Wicked movie. Reminiscent of We Will Rock You star Kerry Ellis, who has performed Queen covers on tour with Brian May on numerous occasions, or Elaine Paige, who released her own The Queen Album in 1981, it was a great start to the night.

"You're My Best Friend" introduced us to The Voice UK and Dreamgirls star Nicole Raquel Dennis, and Harry Potter actor Nick Shirm, who brilliantly replaced the advertised Wuthering Heights West End star Liam Tamn. 

Nicole would go on to deliver a very good rendition of "A Kind of Magic", which was perfectly suited for the orchestra, and "Play The Game", which had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. She was ideally matched for "Headlong" too, even if it seemed an unusual choice for orchestra given some of the more obvious epic tracks ommited.

Nick would return for a very orchestral version of "Radio Ga Ga", which had the entire Bridgewater Hall handclapping in unison like they were at Live Aid, as well as "Breakthru", which had virtually every single person in the audience up dancing. He delivered a perfectly operatic version of "I'm Going Slightly Mad" and perhaps the hardest song of the night, "It's A Hard Life", which again required full operatic delivery from both singer and orchestra.

Freddie had based the tricky opening line of "It's A Hard Life" on "Vesti la giubba", an aria from Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci and, with the famous video also adopting an "operatic-style", it seemed like an obvious choice to match to orchestra. Nick delivered a perfect rendition to a standing ovation from many of the Queen die hards who recognised that even Freddie had struggled with the track live on tour, and you could only wonder how much practice he had been given after being asked to replace Liam on the bill.

Freddie's famous fast piano intro to "Seven Seas of Rhye" was wonderfully recreated and introduced us to Canadian actor Alex Gaumond, who having made his name playing the leading role of Galileo in the Queen musical We Will Rock You, was the ideal frontman, also strutting his stuff around the stage on other tracks like "Fat Bottomed Girls", "Bicycle Race" (with Alice) and "We Will Rock You".

As good as Alex was in delivering the incredibly fast and mythical lyrics of "Seven Seas of Rhye", for me, as a Queen connoisseur and fan of the Hallé, it came as a bit of a disappointment that they missed the opportunity to instead reinterpret the original version of the track from Queen I, one of only four instrumental tracks released by the band throughout their career (other than those on the Flash Gordon soundtrack, their solo albums, or the prolonged guitar sections of "Brighton Rock" and the stunning "Bijou") which were crying out for an orchestral rendition.

Fortunately, one of those instrumental tracks, "Forever", got a run out and reinterpretation as "Prelude to Part II" of the show, with the Hallé really letting rip with Queen's bombastic sound. On listening to people's comments after the show, this seemed to be the highlight of the night for many, alongside its more famous lyrical version, "Who Wants To Live Forever", which was originally recorded with an orchestra arranged by Michael Kamen (the National Philharmonic Orchestra appear in the video accompanied by forty choir boys).

And I guess this is where I felt the show fell down slightly. For many of the songs, the orchestra took a backseat to the vocalist, which gave the show more of a musical theatre vibe - almost like a tribute to the We Will Rock You musical, rather than Queen themselves at times. Ironically, for "Don't Stop Me Now", for the majority of the song, the orchestra seemed to stop for a break altogether, giving way to the brilliant vocals of Alex Gaumond backed only by the drummer - who had recreated Roger Taylor's heavy sound perfectly - and the fantastic rhythm section led by a guitarist, whom - complete with Brian May curly hair wig, if not a Red Special guitar - was absolutely incredible throughout the night; the songs presumably meaning a lot to him as he was having the time of his life.

I would have liked to have seen the Hallé mix up the setlist on the night to include full orchestral interpretations of the songs, giving centre stage to their talented musicians who are rightly recognised as being amongst the finest in the world and, looking at their various T-shirts and fancy dress, included plenty of Queen fanatics among their ranks.

There have been full orchestral tributes to Queen recorded and released by the likes of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic and various national orchestras across Europe and South America, while the Prague FILMharmonic Orchestra re-recorded an instrumental version of Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé's incredible Barcelona album, for its special 2012 reissue. The Candlelight string quartet tributes to Queen are also among the most popular shows on ManchesterTheatres.com.

Not that this detracted from the enjoyment of the evening, as the four brilliant vocalists joined each other on stage to deliver an excellent version of "The Miracle", one of Queen's more orchestral but lesser known hits.

Alice Fearn returned to deliver spine-tingling performances of "Somebody To Love" and "Save Me", for which her interpretation deserved extra praise seeing as she had revealed to us in an exclusive interview before the concert that she was previously unaware of the track. You could have heard a pin drop, and it was yet another perfectly delivered rendition that complemented the sing-along fun of "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", "Flash", "Bohemian Rhapsody" (complete with opera section), "We Are The Champions" and another encore run out for "We Will Rock You."

The problem for any artist paying tribute to another, is that among the audience, there are likely to be die-hard fans who will pick up on every nuance, missed lyric or sacrosanct rendition of songs that mean so much to so many. With Queen's fanbase this is especially true, and it can be like handling the Crown Jewels (which, incidentally was the name of a box set released in 1998 to mark their 25th anniversary). 

There seemed to be plenty of die-hard Queenies at The Bridgewater Hall, including three "off duty" members of the orchestra sat next to me in the Gallery, and it was notable that the important staples of a Queen concert like the "Ready Freddie!" cry in "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," Freddie's trademark "Ay-Oh" call and response, or important tracks like "Love of My Life" (actually written for harp), "Now I'm Here" (with its operatic staging), "Tie Your Mother Down," and instrumental "God Save The Queen" were all missing despite each being perfect for orchestral interpretation.

And while I overheard people discussing these things and other notable ommissions, on leaving the concert - after a long, well deserved standing ovation - a good time was still had by all and the audience reaction was the perfect end to a fantastic 2024 for the Hallé.

Among other comments overheard among the jubilant crowd afterwards, I heard one old chap tell his wife that he would be going up in the loft, on arriving home, to see what singles he still has in his collection; a girl, no older than 10, asked her parents if they could listen to Queen on the way home in the car; and a group of young students were saying that they should come to more classical concerts.

I'm sure that, among the celebrating orchestra, they were probably saying "we should do this more often!"  And indeed they should.  If the reaction is like this every night, live classical music will "Keep Itself Alive" for many years to come and continue to introduce a new audience to the genre.

WE SCORE HALLÉ - THE MUSIC OF QUEEN...





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