We Will Rock You

[thewho rocks <leb905@xxxxxxxxx>]

Here's a description and brief review of Queen's musical that we
discussed a while back.  From alt.music.who:


>I recently saw a new musical in London called "We Will Rock You."
It is sort-of a science fiction storyline woven around music by Queen,
but it pays homage to all rock music.

It's the year 2300, and people no longer can have musical instruments
or any imagination or originality.  The earth is known as Planet Mall,
and a giant corporation called Global-Soft runs pretty much everything
and everybody.  They produce music with computers, and the same tunes
get recycled about every two years.  Kids are all taught the same
dances to the same tunes, etc.  The CEO is the "Killer Queen" who will
stop at nothing to have control of everything.

We then meet the protagonist, a high school misfit.  He tells his
teacher (who of course immediately reports him to Global Soft) that
he has dreams in which he hears strange screeching noises, banging
sounds, and strange words.  What words?, she asks.  He replies
that they don't make any sense to him, and quotes

        I'm a substitute for another guy.
        I look really tall, but my heals are high.

"What does that MEAN?!" he asks.  Later in the show we meet the
bohemians who are looking for a "dreamer" who will restore rock music,
which they read about in old bits of magazines they have found
("they're like web pages, only on paper"), and they believe a
myth that Queen was one of these rock groups, foresaw the end of
rock music because of the emergence of corporate-controlled boy and
girl bands, and hid musical instruments somewhere to be found by
the dreamer.  This "Bohemian Rhapsody" is exactly what Global-Soft
wants to prevent, of course.

One of the bohemians has a Who T-shirt on similar to
the Maximum R&B shirt, but with a big question mark instead of the
arrow, and some fine print that I was unable to read at the bottom.
Later, when the bohemians are in a sort of vegatative state because
it looks as if their dreams have been crushed by the Global-Soft
police, an old man character comments that "they hoped they'd die
before they got old, and in a way they have."

There are many references to rock musicians who have died young,
lyrics from many rock songs (not just Queen's), a lot of in-jokes
that you will get if you recognize the rock songs they're referring to,
etc.  I really recommend seeing this show if you get the chance.

Tim 

=====
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