Queen has been my favorite band since I was a kid. My sixth grade music teacher remembers me not for being able to sing a low F by the time I was 12, but because I asked to sing Queen songs during class. While I love a lot of music of several varieties, they score far above all the others. They are the only group whose catalog of music has lodged itself in my head so well that I can sing along with almost any song. Even though Freddy Mercury is no longer with us, I still jump at the chance to see them any time the remaining members are in concert, and they have found a truly capable and dynamic lead singer in Adam Lambert.
Tickets for their current tour went on sale at 10 am on December 6. I had my tickets for their Columbus concert at 10 am and 5 seconds. I waited months until I finally got to see them on Tuesday. So many important things have happened for me and in the world since December, but nothing was going to distract me from seeing and hearing them on stage. I put my phone on silent and put it in my pocket, only to take it out to snap a handful of photos.
They rocked a completely sold out arena and kept 20,000 people on their feet for two and half hours, playing greatest hits and a few deep cuts, too. To my astonishment, there were people who spent several hundred dollars for seats even better than mine and watched the entire concert through camera app on their phone! I mean ... Queen ... living legends ... one of the greatest bands of all time ... and the extent of some people's experience is always going to be the narrow view they had through the lens of their camera. And then to boggle my mind even further, they would take a break from the camera so they could post pictures and videos to social media.
I suppose not everybody wanted to engage with the music the same way I did. I admit there are several times it is easier for me to view the world through my camera rather than confront all the events going on, whether they are joyful or disastrous. Or I let myself get distracted by the buzzes and beeps from my phone instead of listening to what's happening around me or within me. Even during the writing of this blog post, I've probably stopped four times to scroll through my Facebook feed, catching fleeting bits of thoughts and pictures rather than letting my brain focus on the voice in my head telling me to get to work on my task. Maybe it is a defense mechanism to split my attention among several things so I don't have to confront the gravity and the pressure of what it is important. It is easier to get caught up in a hundred mindless things, keeping other people at arm's length.
One of my favorite moments in the concert was when Adam Lambert and Roger Taylor sang Under Pressure together. The fact that both of the icons who made the song famous (Freddy Mercury and David Bowie) are gone made the song weigh even more heavily. The words are timeless, but sometimes they get lost in all the craziness of the song, so I've cleaned them up and I'll leave them here for your perusal. I think they speak for themselves.
Pressure pushing down on me
Pressing down on you, no man ask for
Under pressure that burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets
It's the terror of knowing what the world is about
Watching some good friends screaming "Let me out!"
Pray tomorrow gets me higher
Pressure on people, people on streets
Turned away from it all like a blind man
Sat on a fence but it don't work
Keep coming up with love but it's so slashed and torn
Why, why, why?
Love, love, love, love, love
Insanity laughs under pressure we're breaking
Can't we give ourselves one more chance?
Why can't we give love that one more chance?
'Cause love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is ourselves under pressure
Distractedly yours,
John Johns
Songwriters: David Bowie / John Richard Deacon / Brian Harold May / Freddie Mercury / Roger Meddows Taylor
Under Pressure lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Spirit Music Group, Tintoretto Music