Queen Nation Live at Constitution Park Camarillo 6/8/2013

I just saw Queen live at AXS TV’s The World’s Greatest Tribute Bands at the Roxy last month. I left feeling like I was at a Queen concert. I’ve seen many tributes to Queen over the years and consider myself a big fan of their music. They are easily one of the most important rock bands ever.

I got into an accident in 1980 when I was a little kid. In the hospital, I was given Queen’s “The Game” on cassette as a “get well present”. The album had just come out and big song on the radio at the time was “Another One Bites the Dust”. I became a huge Queen fan.

I still have many soundtracks where they played music for movies. Two of my favorites are their tunes on “Iron Eagle” and “Flash Gordon” (and who can forget Highlander?).

I was coming home from the Tom Petty concert at The Forum on November 24, 1991 when they announced on the radio that Freddie Mercury had died. I never actually saw him live in concert. At that point, I owned a CD player and every one of their recordings and really regretted never seeing him play.

I did catch Queen with Paul Rodgers at the Hollywood Bowl in October of 2005. I actually caught a portion of Queen Nation in 2008 and they were fantastic. Last year, I was Queen Extravaganza at Club Nokia. That show was absolutely incredible.

Queen Nation pays tribute to Queen so well that they truly deserve the recognition they’ve received.

Constitution park was packed. There were thousands of people here. This was a large concert. The amount of people in line for the outhouses outnumbered rivaled the size of the crowd for a normal draw of an average touring band.

They did quite a few of the same songs as their AXS TV appearance and kicked it up a notch with tons of other classics. Queen was a great band because of the compositional value of their tunes. Their music has a special quality to it that makes them an incredibly unique band. They even did a few lesser-known song, which sounded great and they didn’t seem to lose the crowd in the process.

My favorite Queen song of all time is “Dragon Attack” (from “The Game” cassette, of course), which is such a killer, heavy song.. They absolutely nailed it. That was the highlight for me. They also played a rocking version of “Stone Cold Crazy”, which has been covered by Metallica. It was quite a metal moment seeing Queen Nation rocked Central Camarillo. That was an incredible performance. .

Some more highlights included “Somebody to Love”, “Killer Queen”, and “Don’t Stop me Now”

This lady got to ring the bell for “Bicycle Race”

What an incredible rhythm section. Songs like “Another One Bites The Dust” and “Under Pressure” had the place hopping.

Of course they played “Another one Bites the Dust”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “We Will Rock You” and “We are the Champions”.

“Freddie Mercury” and “Brian May” were remarkable. My buddy and I agreed that seeing them makes you feel like you just saw Queen. It was incredible. What a fantastic job.