We will rock youI was quite desperate to go watch this but none of the uncle and auntie friends shared the same passion for Queen’s music.  So desperate was I, I started thinking of schemes I could possibly use to coerce Big Guy into going with me.

But I got lucky – I received an SMS from one of my good ol’ sisters who text that she had ‘free tickets’ and ‘would we like to go?’.   FREE TICKETS!!!  WOULD WE LIKE TO GO!!!  Yes! Yes! Yes!  This was indeed a miracle and we had quite good seats too.

So we went to rock with her family (that includes a 12-year-old nephew and 14-year-old niece) and some of her husband’s friends.  Since it was free, the Big Guy went along too, although his knowledge of Queen’s music was limited to perhaps 5 songs.  So I gave him a crash course by playing the Queen’s Greatest Hits CDs (yes lah, this auntie and uncle does not have an MP3 player) in the car while we went to ‘dump’ the Little Guy at my mother-in-law’s.

The audience was surprisingly sedate, much to my disappointment.  They only warmed up at the finale.  And what a finale it was!  But before that, the crowd could have got up and go when the show started with an improvised version of ‘Radio Ga Ga’.

Big Guy and I thoroughly enjoyed the show.  But I suppose people will enjoy the show more if they went with some knowledge of rock ‘n’ roll history, a background of Queen and their music and of current pop stuff as well.

The script was funny at most times (Ben Elton’s a British comedian) and song titles came fast and furious from the lines.  Sexual innuendos too, if you can catch them.  There were some local references too, which I did not find funny.  Dick Lee got 2 references.  I thought if they wanted to include something local, Anita Sarawak would have been perfect for the role of Killer Queen.

And there were teaser after teaser for the Queen anthem, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.  I thought many of us there were about to pop (after holding our breaths for this one) when they did not sing it even when the finale seemed to be over… oops!  spoiler here!  While we were holding our breaths for the anthem, the cast belted out hit after hit from Queen.  Since it is a musical, some of the songs were ‘musicalized’, if you know what I mean.  But they were still good.  Queen had such a wide range – from the noisy heavy guitars to the swingy, and even slow songs.  In fact at the interval, Big Guy asked me ‘are you sure all the songs are from Queen?’.  I guess he needs more ‘crash coursing’!

The finale was the best ever!!  We all left on a high even though it was 1 hour before midnight when it ended.  Wished it could have gone on longer!

I would recommend everyone to go catch this.  Mig Ayesa was fantastic and so was each of the cast members.

And the band behind the screen was just superb!  Thanks also to the great sound system at the theatre.

At the end of it, I was in love, no, not with anybody, but with the… electric guitar!  The band was THAT fantastic!

Go catch it as many times as you can!