YAY OR NAY?? Adam Lambert And Queen!

When I see the current line-up of Queen playing to sold-out arenas across the country, I am filled with a number of conflicting thoughts - the most obvious being "Do Brian and Roger really need the money?" - and figured I'd argue with myself in full view of the rest of you.

Wouldn't be the first time.

Adam Lambert reminds me of a kid I went to school with who, from day one, had this sick need for attention.  He didn't care if you liked him, either, as he seemed to derive as much enjoyment from being beaten up as much as being liked.  Thing is, he made it impossible to like him and a kid I otherwise would have never noticed if not for the dust-up he'd created.

The same can be said for Adam Lambert.

He imposed himself upon the American Idol producers, showed us he could sing, and then completely made that fact irrelevant.  Singing was got him through the door and, once through, it was party time.  Then his album didn't sell as well as he'd hoped, he could feel folks starting to move on, and then did the most unlikely thing he, or anyone else, could imagine:

Sing for Queen.

Mind you, his decision wasn't as incredulous as Paul Rodgers' had been.  The Free/Bad Company singer had no right even humming along to a Queen song when it came on the radio, much less fronting the band for a few years.  Ah, but there was money to be made.  "The show must go on", after all.

Still, one can't help wonder what Freddie Mercury might have said about the whole thing.  I like to think he'd have taken one look at Lambert fronting a band that doesn't include John Deacon, or HIM, that still dares call itself Queen and turned his back in disgust.

It wouldn't be because he thinks himself irreplaceable, or considers Adam Lambert a complete musical fraud, but because half of the components (the aforementioned Mercury and Deacon) are missing.  Sure, the light show is amazing and the humongous Queen logo on the backdrop practically demands your respect, but would you be as willing a passenger in Ferrari with half of the parts missing and a defiant clown behind the wheel?

Some folks are and one can't help think that most of them who live in Chicago were also at Queen's Chicago show, where nobody was killed, but that doesn't make the "ride" a success, does it?  In today's celebrity-obsessed culture where we no longer ask for credentials, bonafied legends continually find themselves in positions where they can either join forces with faux-celebs or be banished to the "that was yesterday" pile.

Nobody rides off into the sunset anymore, which means that there are more and more adulation-starved misfits littering the scene than usual, which means that Adam Lambert AND Queen - on their own - are fighting harder to play to fewer people.  Ah, but if they join forces, commit a little sacrilege, the folks who don't care about such things will flock like sheep, and we'll all realize how replaceable that Mercury fellow was after all, right?