Queen fans were rocking at a packed Forsyth Barr Stadium on Monday night as the band performed its first ever concert in Dunedin.
As the crowd waited for the legendary group, they began clapping in the rhythm of the anthem We Will Rock You.
The show began about 8.45pm as a silhouette of guitarist Brian May high above the stage drew a roar from the audience before the rest of the band joined him to play Now I’m Here and Seven Seas of Rhye.
Lambert began singing with the British rock band behind such hits as Bohemian Rhapsody, Radio Ga Ga and We Are The Champions in place of frontman Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991.
He also took the chance to address the “big pink elephant in the room”.
“It’s true. I’m not Freddy Mercury. Because there's only one Freddy Mercury. Do you love Freddy?”, he asked.
“I’m same as you. I’m a fan.”
Then, he asked the crowd to sing along with him.
Many had enjoyed a sunny afternoon ahead of the concert, packing out Octagon bars as they enjoyed a range of live music.
Arnold Thompson travelled down from Wellington to sell Queen merchandise to fans before the show.
"The atmosphere's electric,'' he said, saying trade had been steady during the afternoon. "It's lovely weather.''
Brian May was spotted by a fan in the seaside suburb of St Clair, who said it was "amazing" seeing his favourite guitar hero.
"Getting to know Dunedin!
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"My first time ever on the South Island of New Zealand. Nice brisk walk and met a new friend, a red-billed gull, chasing my blues away.
"Also unexpectedly met a lovely bunch of Vegan humans nearby. Hello Dunedin!!"
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Sound issues again prevalent around the stadium. We left early it was that bad, as did others while many were complaining. Seems to be in pockets as others thought it was good. Very disappointing. Will be looking for a refund.
Video and lighting were superb, but I agree with Curious George that the sound quality was very disappointing. The equipment was good, but the constant severe echo all night suggested that the sound system was being run from the echo machine output, rather than from the audio control desk. I walked around after the second number but found no clear sound anywhere. I went to the central mixing desk position where audio should have been ideal, but found the same echoing mess and found another sound mixing engineer who had also gone to the same mixing position to try and see why it was so awful. He had come down from the North island for the concert and was horrified by the echoing Low-Fi of the sound. The Queen 'engineer' behind the Digico audio mixing console was not working the console to improve things but walking around apparently content for the system to keep distorting on autopilot. He failed to control the echo, 3 bursts of severe feedback, harsh sibilance from the horn speakers, and a mush of toneless bass sounds masked by the heavy kick drum.
Most of the crowd enjoyed the visual spectacle however, perhaps like me by playing the original audio from memory.