Marc Martel is doing the Freddy singing vocals in this movie and here's a new video by Marc doing Bohemian Rhapsody! Magnificoooo!
That's true. Although I kind of think he was unique in may ways, like his looks and being born where he was, that that all adds up to him being the Freddie we know. His sexuality was just a part of that. It just annoys me that when they make a film about a hetrosexual person then there sexuality is just taken as 'normal' and not really focussed on. But when they do a story about a gay person then there sexuality almost becomes the story, when it should be seen as just as 'normal' as a hetrosexual.
I listened to this without looking at it and there are certainly moments when he does sound very much like Fred. A bit too much vibrato at times, but miles more preferable to Adam Lambert!
@Rhett Thanks for that video. What a talent, did he audition for the role in the movie? He even looks a bit like Freddie, with some makeup & lighting...
I thought that attention to detail was a key part of this film. Didn't they have some mega Queen boffin on the scene at all times??
Exactly, I thought I'd read it somewhere. Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story though
I was promptly thinking of Bowie when I watched the first trailers. He met the band quite a few times, including once when Roger and Freddie were still working at that clothing store in Kensington. Hope so, too, that he's in the film.
Marc is already known by Roger and Brian. Marc toured in their official Queen tribute band for a few years. Now Marc has his own Queen trib band! Marc also recorded the singing vocals for the Queen biopic at Abbey Road! Pretty cool dude and talented too! I wish Marc all the best. And yes I know it's spelled Freddie - just a mistype above.
After watching the video you posted I checked him out on-line, seems like a good guy, and my goodness he is talented.
For sure he is! I first heard Marc on the radio a few years back singing this song with his band 'Downhere'. The song is 'How Many Kings'. I was driving in the car with my wife when 'How Many Kings' came over the radio. While the song was playing, I said to my wife 'this singer sounds like he's channeling Freddie Mercury - I wonder who this guy is?' So when I got home I found out the name of the group and singer only to find the band 'Downhere' was no more and Marc had just auditioned for Queen via a youtube video. That was 7 years ago.
Well..maybe, I don't know. He's the best Freddie voice for my ears since Fred grabbed his hat and coat.
Incredible!! He really sounds like early Freddie! (Early because Freddie's voice slightly changed in the 1980s, so Marc's would more fit nicely to the 1970s band era.) Btw, while I was listening to it I had a scene in my head how Freddie might've showed the full song to the band before they were recording it.^^
I feel that Marc Martel really would have been the ideal choice to front Queen, and due to his relatively unknown status, they could have avoided the "Queen+" promotional device... Who honestly expects any of their revolving door of guest singers to stick around for the long run? You could tell that Brian enjoying having someone with more of a blues background such as Paul Rodgers around, but their live shows together were a compromise of each constituent part's respective back catalogues, while I just can't picture Adam Lambert becoming permanent, no matter how good many consider him - if he did, they'd surely drop the current name and just have fans accept him as the group's new frontman. Anyway, back to Marc again, his voice truly is the ideal blend of Freddie's earlier sound and the macho style he'd later adopt (which included him taking up smoking and increasingly struggling with vocal nodules, especially on The Works 1984 tour). In a way, it's almost as if he's based his own voice on the Innuendo period, only without the loss of chest power that Freddie suffered as his health continued to decline, plus vibrato more typical of what you'd often hear in the early '80s on something like the South America Bites The Dust or Gluttons For Punishment tours.
Went to see this at my nearest IMAX yesterday (2D). A little bit pointless as it wasn't shot in IMAX so didn't fill the screen, but the sound was the main draw. Overall it is not a total disaster, however is absolutely mind bending in the timeline inaccuracies, even for the casual fan. Some you can let go, but some are just totally daft. (IIRC I think "Fat Bottom Girls" appears in a concert montage before "A night at the opera" LP gets recorded) It has some nice attention to detail though outside of the wrong timelines. The cast are excellent, Malik and the band are excellent. Extra kudos to Gwilyn Lee who plays Brian May, he really nailed his mannerisms. Paul Prenter is very much the villain of the piece here, if there had to be one, he gets it in a one dimensional layer of just being someone who wanted to do everything for Freddie and his is affections, but may of seen in a dim light by the band. This is very much a 5/10 film though because it could of been a lot more. At its heart its both a Queen and Freddie biopic, I don't think the sexuality is ignored, although drugs are very much implied as going on but rarely seen. I suppose it doesn't need to be that graphic. With Brian and Roger heavily involved in this film, it was always going to be like this in reality. There is a main problem that Freddie really thought, and tried to get everyone to believe, he wasn't that interesting outside of music and off the stage, and therefore talking about it, documenting and displaying his out of hours pastimes where not interesting for him to discus with anyone, and therefore Brian and Roger carry this forward in the public relations front they have adopted in the years since he died. What isn't lost here is that element of Queen's flirt with naffness, and they really don't care. If you can watch the finale and NOT watch the cut when an entire London pub (watching Live Aid on the TV) through your fingers, you have a higher naff tolerance than me. I'd say its well worth watching though, however you get to see it over the years.
This proves a point about how much Brian and Roger invested into this film and how controlling they where and why the film had such a laboured history in getting to the screen. If it were made without this level of control, then certainly any other script writer and director would have put the massive fallout of them playing South Africa and Sun City on The Works tour into the film. Brian and Roger don't want you to remember that bit.
I understand totally what you are saying, but there are a bunch of things that didnt really make it into the movie even in the timeline they were covering. Its not just no Sun City, there's no Flash Gordon, theres really no Jazz album, in fact I think A Night At The Opera is one of the few that really gets a mention and theres no real South American tour, they just gloss over a worldwide tour starting in 1976 and include Rio by name, but then of course they have Freddie etc in the wrong costumes for that tour. They over-dramatise the time lapse before Live Aid as if theyve been washed up, instead of having just finished The Works tour and Freddie having released Mr Bad Guy only 6 weeks or so before. I get that they played fast and loose with timelines and stuff for dramatic reasons [altho Im not 100% convinced they had to the way they did - and superQueenNerd alert it still bugs me how having got every other costume right they got the wrong sequins for Freddie's leotard] but I understand that they couldnt cram everything into the running time they had. I think the movie's saving grace - and I definitely DID enjoy it in the cinema as did my young Queen fan niece - is the cast. All the band were great, but Rami Malek was particularly good as Freddie. He really was much better than I expected anyone really would be.
I haven't yet seen the movie, but surely going to see it on friday when it premieres here..anyways looking forward to this one. There has been some great music-dramas lately, I saw "A Star Is Born" at the local cinema on saturday, which was terrific movie, both Cooper and Gaga did brilliant roles. Anyways, so based on the feedback that I've read concerning Bohemian Rhapsody, given the comments and reviews from the people that have seen this one, I know how Brian and Roger were involved and invested to this project, but still thinking that the movie took so many years to be done, they surely could have take closer look at some of the errors and all the inaccuracies. Im not talking about hiding some events, taking stuff away or not mentioning particular stuff like certain albums, tour, gigs, or anything that's been covered in book and documentaries, but the little errors that aren't all related (for example that bit of Fat Bottomed Girls played live before ANATO that @englishbob mentioned).
I listened too. I'd never mistake that voice for Freddie's voice. The tone is off and the vibrato is wrong, but its a voice that's more along the right lines than Lambert (I can't stand Lambert's voice, it's harsh and grating).
I saw this today. Why did Freddie Mercury, possibly the most theatrical stage performer of them all, never act? - Independent.ie
He's great until he gets to the hard rock part. That part doesn't really work. But he's definitely very impressive.
