‘One Night of Queen’ coming to rock Idaho Falls
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IDAHO FALLS — It’s been over thirty years since Freddie Mercury graced the stage with his band, Queen. This Thursday, March 9, the next best thing is coming to Idaho Falls.
Gary Mullen and his band, The Works, are bringing their show, “One Night of Queen,” to the stage at the Idaho Falls Civic Center for the Performing Arts. The show has been hailed by critics and even praised as “more than just a likeness” by Queen guitarist Brian May. (Click here for tickets.)
The band is fronted by Gary Mullen, a lifelong Queen fan who’s been performing as Mercury with The Works for over twenty years.
“For me, the first band I got turned onto that popped up on my radar was Queen,” Mullen told EastIdahoNews.com. “I was probably about four or five years old and was watching TV and on ‘Top of the Pops,’ the video for ‘We Are the Champions’ was playing. And I thought ‘Who are those guys?’ It was Freddie in his black-and-white leotard and the music and the lights because it was like a live stage set up and they were playing to a crowd. And I was hooked.”
Mullen’s love of Queen led him to perform as Mercury, eventually forming The Works and creating “One Night of Queen” in 2002. Because Queen’s music covers so many different sounds and genres, finding top-notch musicians for “One Night of Queen” was of paramount importance. For example, The Works’ guitarist Dave Brockett was mentioned as one of Scotland’s best guitarists in Total Guitar magazine in 2001.
“I think the key element is the musicianship and we’ve got an incredible band,” Mullen said. “To be a good tribute band, the musicians have got to be as good as the band you’re portraying. You can’t just be OK. Especially with songs that are complex. Queen songs are very complex and some of the things in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ or we do little medleys where you segue from one song to the next, you’ve got to have the chops to play the songs convincingly, professionally and with dynamics.”
The Works is an accomplished group of skilled musicians who put their all into their live shows. Throw in recreating Mercury’s presence and stage moves and you’ve got a show that takes a lot of energy for Mullen to pull off.
“Do you remember the Evel Knievel, where you’d wind the thing up and press a button and it would take off from this launchpad,” he asked. “That’s kind of what I do before a show. I sit backstage, I put on some music, warm up my voice, get ready and put the makeup and the costume on. But while I’m doing that, I’m ramping my adrenaline up. We’re all doing it so that when we hit the stage, we’re ready to go. The audience wants my energy, so it’s something I have to wind myself up to do.”
“One Night of Queen” celebrates Queen’s most well-known songs, like “We Are the Champions,” but Mullen said the band includes also album cuts and that the setlist changes depending on where in the world The Works is playing.
“A song that was hit in one country might not necessarily be a hit in another,” he said. “People will post setlists, what Queen played at certain shows in different parts of the world. Then we look at what singles were released in what countries and what medleys were done on tours. Then we make and measure the setlist for the country we’re in because certain songs weren’t released in Europe and certain songs weren’t released in America.”
Mullen said that while he’s singing songs he did not write, he still derives a great deal of satisfaction from recreating the experience of a Queen concert for people who never got to see the band while Mercury was still alive.
“Each one of these songs for all guys in the band has a meaning,” he said. “When I sing these songs now, it’s my interpretation of how I felt the song when I heard it for the first time on the radio or on a record. In a small way, we’re keeping that legacy and the music going. You’re never going to see Queen with Freddie or (bass player) John (Deacon) again. So, we’re trying to recreate a moment in time that you’ll never, ever see again.”
You can still get tickets for “One Night of Queen” with Gary Mullen & The Works. The show is set for this Thursday, March 9, at the Idaho Falls Civic Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m.
