Two words. Brendon Urie. The lead singer of one of my favorite bands of all time Panic! At The Disco. I have just received the news that he will be making his Broadway debut in Kinky Boots as Charlie Price from May 26th to August 6th. When I heard this fantastic news, I was on cloud nine. My emotions were all over the place, ranging from excited to nervous that all of the shows might be sold out and I won't be able to go see Brendon Urie live. Now I know what you're thinking. Why am I too excited about this? Because rock combined with musical theatre, is about one of the most magnificent arrangements that the power of music can offer to your ears.
What I love so much about Brendon Urie is that he reminds me of a modern day version of the legend Freddie Mercury. In my opinion, Queen is by far one of the greatest bands in music history. The notes that Freddie Mercury could hit without straining his voice were unimaginable to describe. Now I am not saying that Mercury is much better than Urie or vise versa, what I am saying is that Urie's vocal skills are pretty darn close to Mercury's. Both of Urie's and Mercury's voices sound both natural and pleasing to the ear whenever they hit those crazy notes that very few men can accurately hit. Both artists are extremely passionate about what impact their music has on people. Both artists care about their other band members who contribute to making all of the magic happen. And both artists are will not settle for anything less than perfect when it comes to performing in front of a live audience.
However, despite all of the praise that both Urie and Mercury are receiving, we all know the concept of the book being better than the movie or the old being better than the new. This same concept applies to original Queen song called Bohemian Rhapsody. Panic! At The Disco recently did a cover of this song for the movie Suicide Squad. As I was listening to the song on my iPhone, I was blown away with how well the band executed this iconic song. I was also really happy to hear that Panic! At The Disco, honored Freddie Mercury in the best way possible by not changing any of the lyrics or making the song more modernized in a bad way. Some of the only minor changes that I've noticed were the tone of Urie's voice compared to Mercury's and the additional loud music plus back up vocals. But overall, I got the same goosebumps that I get whenever I hear Freddie Mercury sing: "Mama ooo... (anyway the wind blows) I don't wanna die! I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all!" Or just the entire song in general.
Even though the you may not understand why Panic! At The Disco chooses to have these incredibly long song titles such as: "Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off." Compared to Queen's much simpler titles such as: "Don't Stop Me Now." But both of these artists past and present, have changed the way rock music is presented in the music industry. Instead of just creating a bunch of noise for no reason, there is meaning created with a bunch of random noise behind this music.
Rock is by far one of my favorite music genres. Between the intense beat (sometimes combined with softer instruments from time to time), the bone chilling vocals with back up singers, and the lyrics overall, have proven to me why I keep listening to bands like Queen and Panic! At The Disco.
I cannot wait to see this epic music duo of hard core rock combined with storytelling show tunes when I get the chance to see Brendon Urie in Kinky Boots this summer. Hopefully the stage door won't be too crowded!
