Ultimate Queen Celebration (now with 60% more QEX)

Apparently, the Ultimate Queen Celebration was supposed to feature the South American Queen tribute band Dios Salve a La Reina but they withdrew a week before the tour was to start. Instead of cancelling the shows, the concert promoter asked Marc Martel to fill in at the last minute because... the show must go on.

I lucked out because the Toronto-area show I attended also featured former Queen Extravaganza members Brandon Ethridge (keyboard) and Tristan Avakian (guitar) whereas the previous shows had different musicians backing Marc. (Brandon and Tristan have a long history with Queen as they also played for the WWRY musical.) So the band I saw was 60% QEX! Here are a couple videos from the show.

Ave Maria with a segue into Bohemian Rhapsody

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We Will Rock You + We Are The Champions

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PHENOMENAL!!! I just wish there were better film quality!

Apparently, the Ultimate Queen Celebration was supposed to feature the South American Queen tribute band Dios Salve a La Reina but they withdrew a week before the tour was to start. Instead of cancelling the shows, the concert promoter asked Marc Martel to fill in at the last minute because... the show must go on.

I lucked out because the Toronto-area show I attended also featured former Queen Extravaganza members Brandon Ethridge (keyboard) and Tristan Avakian (guitar) whereas the previous shows had different musicians backing Marc. (Brandon and Tristan have a long history with Queen as they also played for the WWRY musical.) So the band I saw was 60% QEX! Here are a couple videos from the show.

Ave Maria with a segue into Bohemian Rhapsody

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We Will Rock You + We Are The Champions

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Great stuff! Lovely to see Marc reunite with Tristan as well. He was great with the QE along with Brian Gresh. Wish we could have them back even though Radcliffe is alright too. Marc is fantastic as usual. Hopefully we have QE back on tour very soon

I went to another Ultimate Queen Celebration concert in Quebec City this past weekend. This time I took my video camera for better quality. It looks like Brandon and Tristan are permanent members of the band now -- Brandon was introduced as keyboards and musical director. I recorded some songs that either QE has never done or songs where there are no good videos of QE.

Play the Game

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Save Me

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Hammer to Fall

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They also did a couple non-Queen songs:

Ave Maria + Bohemian Rhapsody

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Nessun Dorma -- performed 100% Freddie style (vs. 50% Freddie in the Mercurotti video)

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And here's some of Tristan's "Brian May medley" guitar solo. Enjoy!

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Lovely clips this! Great to see them perform songs like Play the Game and Hammer to Fall. I so also like Ave Maria before Bohemian Rhapsody. Suits Martels voice just great.

It's nice to see Tristan Avakian too. Miss him in Queen Extravaganza to be honest.