Queen: Rock the World

I'm generally not a fan of the rock documentary genre -- watching how the sausage gets made doesn't appeal to me. But Queen come across as, I guess the phrase is true professionals. They absolutely care about the music in every detail, they are very self aware of what they are and what they're doing, and they have a remarkably low sense of entitlement. I'm not much interested in "musicians I'd like to party with", but Queen feels like "musicians I could have a really interesting conversation with".

And, of course, lurking behind it all, there is mortality and the death of Freddie Mercury (at only 45 remember). The coda, the few minutes of 2017 tour with Adam Lambert, I gotta say they were touching in a way I didn't expect; the joy (once again no sense of entitlement...) at being able to perform again, and the respect paid to Adam Lambert as a great new front man, while not insisting on comparing him to Freddie. They're a class act all round!

This fascinating documentary from both the past (2017) and the deeper past (1977) shows the making of Queen's seminal News of the World and a brief coda with the stadium Lambert gang in their contemporary guise. It's really rather charming and Queen in their full 70s power is terrifying and compelling. The sheer weight of their talent and charm (well, Freddie's charm, anyway) is spellbinding and a lot of this footage, with wonderful whisperin' Bob, I'd never seen. It's a fascinating bit of musical history and there's some pain in seeing them older and still soldiering on when the act of touring seems such a painful and exhausting sort of business.