The Legend of Queen – Surgeons’ Hall Grand Theatre
There are some voices you simply cannot mistake. Peter Marchant gets remarkably close to one of them. Close your eyes during The Legend of Queen and you are pretty much there. Open them and you are definitely not. But that is rather the point. This is not a Freddie Mercury impersonation act, it is an exceptionally accomplished celebration of the music.
Marchant particularly captures the compressed, slightly shredded quality of Mercury’s lower register. It is instantly identifiable and extremely well done. At the very top, he cannot quite reach those extraordinary Mercury heights, but two very able backing singers take the sound onwards and upwards. It is clever arranging around a voice that was always going to be almost impossible to reproduce.
Musicianship throughout is up ...