Concert: The Queen Extravaganza in Los Angeles

Among the myriad singing contest shows and serialized musicals dotting the prime time TV landscape, the go-to ratings bump is a theme night. After all, who doesn't love to see a group of preternaturally talented musicians play the hell out of music you grew up with, especially if the original band members otherwise disposed?

The Queen Extravaganza is theme night in high gear, a more formal concert experience than the Beatlemania touring shows of decades past and a clear couple of notches above the county fair cover band fare served up locally every summer.

Still, as evidence at Club Nokia in Los Angeles on Monday night (6/25), a true Queen concert it's not, so much as a string of tribute performances performed by a talented troupe of musicians. There's not one Freddie owning the spotlight, but a pair of vocalists (one of whom pulls off a convincing David Bowie vocal impression for "Under Pressure") trading off to sing their own specialties, plus a handful of background singers who sometimes step up for a verse or song.

Likewise on the guitar, a pair of guitarists parse out lead guitar territory and particularly shine reproducing Brian May's elegant guitar harmonies.

The end effect is thoroughly entertaining, often joyful but never quite epic.

Highlights of the show seem to come in pairs: The note-perfect reproduction of "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon" into "I'm In Love With My Car," the soaring "Don't Stop Me Now" into "Under Pressure," the hyper-kinetic "Stone Cold Crazy" into an impressive "Show Must Go On" that earns as many points for lung power as it does for musical precision.

Still, there are some niggles with detail. In "Save Me," the first half of the guitar break, the tender half that then explodes into the fiery electric section, was excised, taking some of the dynamic impact of the song with it.

On "In The Lap Of The Gods," much of the segue that on album leads into "Stone Cold Crazy" was snipped to ostensibly make for a more dramatic cut to "In The Lap Of The Gods (Revisited)."

But for every completist making mental notes about a break from the original arrangement, there were 20 people singing loudly and waving their arms in the air on queue.

Setlist:
We Will Rock You
Tie Your Mother Down
Now I'm Here,
Killer Queen
Love Of My Life
I Want It All
Bicycle Race
I Want To Break Free
March Of The Black Queen
Dragon Attack
You Take My Breath Away
Save Me
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon
I'm In Love With My Car
Bohemian Rhapsody