This week on Songs From Studio C, I’m joined by the Uncle Dad’s Art Collective, who will be bringing a big show to Laxson Auditorium this Saturday night – a tribute to Queen’s "A Night At The Opera," which brings together some of the North State’s finest musicians, dancers, and visual artists to present a re-imagination of the classic 1975 album. Unfortunately the show is sold out, but the good news is you can watch a stripped-down version of "Killer Queen" right here.
Interview Highlights
On their Queen tribute
We decided to go past a full album tribute, which is what we've done in the past. And what we did is kind of a tribute to more a style of Queen — which is the bombastic, large-scale, dense stuff that they put out. One of the first things we decided would need to be in the show that wasn't on the album was "Killer Queen." What's fun is the version you're going to hear is going to be a little stripped down, and it really highlights I think a lot of the vocal work that we've been working on, which is a lot of fun. We have a vocal quartet that has been working like crazy to get these songs — I mean the harmonies are incredibly dense and hard, and they're the best vocalists I have ever worked with, so it's exciting to feature them and feature a smaller rhythm section with that. But then, I think people are enticed, and they come to the show and they're seeing it onstage — it's going to sound different, because a lot of the pieces that we can't fit in this tiny little room will be on that stage — taking some of the parts and throwing them in. So it's a good gateway drug, so to speak. It's going to sound like this; it's going to sound as good as this, but better — on a better scale.
On preparing for the big show
Well it's been a whirlwind of fun. We actually had thought about doing Queen a while ago. This Night of the Opera show a couple years back, when we first did one of these tributes at (Chico State's) BMU auditorium and decided that we thought it would just be a little outside of our grasp as an artistic entity and so we decided to opt to do some other shows. And after doing that now we came back and said, now I think we're ready to tackle just all the intricacies of doing music this complex and dense. It's been a lot of work but I don't think it's been too much or stressful or anything. It's been a real fun, exciting collaborative process. The music is great and the players are great and hearing how the songs transform from being studio gems that clean record to something they can work live onstage. has been really exciting.