There’s nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said about the excellent concept album ‘Operation Mindcrime’ from progressive rock band Queensrÿche. Released back in 1988, I unfortunately had neither the funds or ability to see them perform live at the time. Thankfully some 20 years later, Queensrÿche embarked on a small UK tour performing both Mindcrime and Mindcrime II material back to back spread over a 3 hour show.

Never been to a rock concert with props and actors previously so didn’t know what to expect but these just served to enhance the Mindcrime story. All members of the band (including Pamela Moore who reprised her original role of ‘Sister Mary’) put on an impressive performance. Even the Mindcrime II material played well live and I came away with a different level of appreciation of it!

It wasn’t all as good as could have been however. The sound system was distored and the equalisation between vocals and music wasn’t as good as it should have been - some of the lyrics were too easily lost in the music. Whether that was an issue with the Colston Hall (Bristol) or the sound setup who knows! The crowd didn’t put a lot of effort into the Mindcrime material as they could have done but that was probably because it was seated. Queensrÿche rounded off the night with two tracks from Empire which thankfully got the crowd going albeit 2 hours too late…

All in all a great evening out with SWMBO and a couple of friends on a special day of the year :cool: