The music of the greatest rock n roll band of all time, Queen, will be celebrated by the Centrestage All-Star Band at the Port Elizabeth Opera House from
11-23 September in a show entitled
Queen - We Are the Champions.
Thereafter show moves to the Guild Theatre in
East London from 25-30 September.
Presented in association with
Algoa Fm, the opening night on 11 September is in aid of the EP Herald Christmas Cheer Fund.
We Are the Champions is the finale in the
Magnificent 7 series presented by Centrestage, which has seen previous successful presentations of tribute shows to the
Beatles,
Abba,
Creedence Clearwater Revival and the
Bee Gees all receiving critical acclaim within the last 18 months.
"And what a finale it will be!", says Centrestage owner Gary Hemmings.
"With each presentation, we have tackled more and more complex material - and I truly believe that the Queen salute will be the cherry on the top", he said.
"One of the trademarks of the Centrestage All-Star Band is that we have taken a great deal of care to be true to the original versions of the songs."
Fronted by the highly talented
Rory McLaren, with
Wayne Callis picking up some of the heavier songs, and once again musically directed by
Donovan Hattingh, the Centrestage All-Star Band is challenged to its limits to recreate the Queen sound authentically.
"The individual band members are all so extremely versatile - we have many aces up our sleeve. Lurking behind the scenes has been the awesome guitar abilities of
Donovan Hattingh, who has had to hold back in the previous shows in respect of the particular musical styles."
"Now Brian May's guitar will come blazing forth in all its 6 string glory from the stage - and there is nobody better equipped to exactly mimic the Queen guitar sound than
Donovan Hattingh, admirably augmented by Callis", says Hemmings.
Every band member has come of age in the last year -
Rory McLaren is singing and playing keyboards as well as he has ever done before. His performance as rock enigma Freddie Mercury follows rave reviews for his one-man show
Taking Them Off, in which he saluted 7 music icons.
Bassist
Mike McCaully has never sounded better or more solid as he delivers the beloved John Deacon bass lines with aplomb, while
Gino Fabbri has been listening to his drummer icon Roger Taylors drum licks since he was 10 years old!
"Our baby in the group,
Eloise Potgieter, suddenly shot to fame in the Patricia Lewis talent seach Sterrewag, where she beat out 3500 contestants to come 4th in the country. Similarly
Donna Africa has grown to be one of our most in demand corporate entertainers this year.
Candy G contributes vocals and second keyboard, with the trio handling the complex Queen backing vocals to a tee"
Another challenge for the group has been that all the Queen songs have been kept in their original, sometimes ridiculously high, keys.
I makes a huge difference that everyone in the band loves the Queen repertoire - and they all clearly enjoy their performances.
Centrestage has also gone to great efforts to step up the productions values for the shows.
The sound, which has never sounded better in the Opera House, is mixed by the now permanently employed Centrestage sound engineer Leon Swart, who was the technical genius behind the sound of the group Semi-Sane, known for their Big Borther theme song.
Mike Broderick, the lighting designer from Durban who created magic for the Bee Gees show, is once again lending his hand to creating an entirely new and exciting stage setup and lighting show to augment the over the top music of Queen.
"The emphasis and the huge challenge in the series of shows has been to recreate the live concert feel of each band - to try to get as close as we can to how it would be to see the actual band if they were to perform live today, at the same time discarding any learned bad habits of the past and recreating the idiosyncrasies of their individual sounds."
"This is not a play set in another time", says Hemmings, "it is Queen as if they were on stage today - as the tagline for the show says -
'pure, undistilled and absolutely live!'"
Tickets for the PE run can be purchased at Computicket, while patrons should contact the Guild Theatre on 043-7430704 to book for the show in East London.
