Legends Never Die (2013)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 3 October 2026

Author: Sebastijan Videc
Photos: Jerneja Jerak

Venue: Cvetličarna, Ljubljana
Concert date: 06.12.2013
Attendance: 1.350
Ticket price: 17€

Deja Vu – two words that sum up pulling up in front of Cvetličarna, if you also caught the recent Doors Alive show: the cold, aging hippies in unofficial T-shirts, and a seriously long multigenerational line outside the door. Only the smell of weed was missing this time. Not that it was needed. The merry month of December is clearly in full swing, and the crowd came out this time to party to the tunes of one of the most beloved rock bands of all time – Queen. The Bohemians got together in 1996 and in almost two decades have reached the status of the best impersonators of that band, playing for rapturous crowds all over the world.

At nine o’clock, when the show was supposed to start, the hall wasn’t full yet, but the long line at the box office hadn’t dried up either. Still, you could feel a positive energy in the air, even something kind of magical. The promoter wisely (or not) arranged a delayed start, and by quarter past nine the floor was properly packed, while the balconies were still filling up several rows deep, with rock hits from Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin to Guns n’ Roses and Aerosmith blasting from the speakers to ease the wait.

After 25 minutes of waiting the music finally cut out, and to the crowd’s great excitement and mild bewilderment, it wasn’t The Bohemians who marched onto the stage but what’s apparently become the in-house warm-up band for tribute acts, Top Stripper. This time the guys played “plugged in,” unlike at the Doors warm-up, which the audience clearly appreciated. Instead of the usual half hour, they earned a full 50-minute set, playing a mix of originals and covers. Two backing vocalists joined the guys on stage this time to add some extra color to Jaša’s vocals. Even though the audience doesn’t really know them, apart from a few obvious exceptions in the front rows, they managed to warm the crowd up pretty well throughout the set, peaking definitely with the Aerosmith cover ‘Walk this way’ and, second to last, the GnR classic ‘Paradise City’.

The break between bands usually means the floor thins out a bit for some fresh air, relief and a nicotine fix, but this time it felt like the crowd was tensely waiting for the main event and wouldn’t give up its spot on the floor or at the balcony railing for any side errands. Luckily the stage crew got their job done in no time, swapping the drums and amps and setting everything up in just fifteen minutes. At exactly half past ten the lights went out again, Brian May’s guitars rang out of the speakers with the studio intro to Tie Your Mother Down, and John Deacon, Roger Taylor and Brian May marched onto the stage – or at least that’s how it looked on the darkened stage of Cvetličarna. Once the intro was done, the band launched into the fast live version of the rock anthem ‘We Will Rock You’, and amid the crowd’s roaring frenzy Freddie Mercury came running out, pardon me, Rob Comber.

Dressed in light jeans with a white tank top, a studded leather band on his right arm and wearing Adidas Universal, Rob was channeling Freddie from the legendary Live Aid performance in 1985. If Freddie was Live Aid, the other band members wore outfits from various concerts and tours. Tribute bands mostly split into two camps – those who want to recreate the sound and staging of the band they imitate, and those who also try to take on the look. These guys fall into the second camp, since with his build and signature mustache Rob isn’t easy to mistake for Freddie, and neither are the blond drummer, the reserved bassist and the maned guitarist.

In their attempt to create an authentic Queen sound, the band also turned to original instruments. So the drummer pounds on Ludwigs, the bassist lays down the foundation on a Fender Precision Bass, and the guitarist plays melodies on a replica of Brian’s Fireplace guitar through Vox amps. Rob, who like Freddie plays piano on top of singing, substitutes Roland keyboards for it – expecting a tribute band to haul around a big, clumsy and sinfully expensive Steinway grand is, of course, unrealistic.

In the first part of the show they bombarded us with hits from the seventies, with the exception of Another One Bites the Dust (1980). Choreography-wise the band totally won me over, be it the drummer’s grimaces while playing, the bassist’s two-footed hops or the guitarist’s moves with the guitar – it’s all here. Of course the toughest job falls to Rob, who pulls it off with flying colors. Freddie was the king of the stage, and stepping into his trousers is hard work, but it comes to Rob very naturally. From all the moves, the ballet elements and the interaction with the crowd to the quick switches between playing piano and going wild on stage with the trademark mic stand stub – he serves up the whole package. Of course, you can’t expect Freddie’s voice, since apart from Marc Martel of the official Queen tribute band Queen Extravaganza, I’ve yet to hear anyone who came close in either range or timbre. But he still does his job excellently. The gripe is more with the guitarist; in the rhythm parts he follows May’s sound nicely, but the difference shows mainly in the solos, which lack that characteristic melodic touch and sound more like generic hard rock solos.

After Crazy Little Thing Called Love, the last number of the first part, where Rob also grabbed an acoustic guitar and an excellent keyboardist whose name I sadly didn’t catch joined them on stage, came a fifteen-minute break. The guys returned to the sounds of the One Vision intro, which was followed, as expected, by a set focusing on the eighties. This time Rob wore Freddie’s outfit from the last Queen tour in 1986 – white pants with a double red stripe, a white shirt with a deep V-neck and a yellow jacket. Sadly, though, the sound engineer didn’t earn his “master” title that night. The sound was too loud, the guitar was cranked way too loud, which was especially annoying in the quieter parts of the songs, and the vocals were too quiet. As a result Rob was hard to hear, apart from those quieter parts. The vocals got a bit better in the second half of the set, but overall the sound was still far from good.

Sound aside, the crowd more than enjoyed the Brits’ performance. Hit followed hit, and more often than not I got the feeling Rob didn’t even need to sing, since the hall drowned out the (badly mixed) vocals. The cohesion was outstanding, whether it was the singing or the mimicry of concerts and videos from the past – from the raised clapping hands in Radio Ga Ga and We Will Rock You, to the vacuuming in I Want To Break Free and of course Freddie’s signature vocal call-and-response with the audience. Later in the second set Rob changed his shirt, in line with the tour, and for the encores put on the white jacket with red accents that Freddie wore in the encores on that same tour. The show ended with one more rock anthem, We Are The Champions, where both Rob and the crowd blew out their vocal cords. During the extended instrumental section of the song, he came out from behind the stage with a British flag with a Slovenian one sewn onto the back – another trademark of the band that the Bohemians imitate so well, and they got a standing ovation for it. The guys said goodbye to the Ljubljana crowd to the sound of the British anthem, with a promise to see us next year. I hope they keep it!