Rock musicals are clearly the only thing better than musicals. That in mind, I was utterly exited to witness We Will Rock You- a new musical featuring hit music from Queen. The show follows outcast high school graduates Galileo Figaro and Scaramouche as they journey through the iplanet-once known as earth- in a search to find the ancient art form of rock music. With a live rock band, projections galore and eye-wrecking strobe lights, this seemingly rocking show took a turn for the worst.
While almost all leads had incredible voices, they were rarely understood between the overpowering accompaniment and bad diction. Or perhaps there were major problems with the microphones and sound quality. Galileo’s speaking voice I thought tried to hard to be charming that he wasn’t relatable to the audience. It was fun to hear some of the big hits we all hum along to, however all around this show had some major disconnects. First off, the songs rarely made that much sense coming in from a scene. When there were background chorus voices, they didn’t seem to mix or sound right with the lead vocalist. And lastly, the choreography never seemed to fit the song and constantly looked a bit off. The moves reminded me of a mix of Lady Gaga background dance and some kind of Duloc dance team.The humor was a bit tasteless for me and they never seemed to follow the comedy “rule of three” where a joke isn’t funny after it is used three times.
I believe the only thing I took away from this show was poorer eyesight. Even though the crazy lights and strobes did seem to give the feel of rock and role, they were constantly blinding, didn’t do much for the show and were obviously used to try to compensate for the lack of spark or excitement onstage. The set seemed to work well for the show but it was the backdrop of projection screens that was a downfall. The constant projections were very distracting and were irrelevant to the world they tried to create and the scene at hand.
Overall this show was a disappointment for me. I thought it had a fresh idea and the futuristic love story could have been very sweet tied in with Queens hits, but it ended up being a very tasteless badly produced long two hours of my time. While some of the people around me seemed to be having a fun time, I was caught checking the time on my phone, which is always a bad sign. I would definitely not recommend this show, especially if you have sensitive eyes.
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