Listen To The New Version Of Queen’s ‘Machines (Or Back To Humans)’

Hailed as a “masterclass” by USA Today, The Queen + Adam Lambert Rhapsody show witnessed by the crowd kicking off with a revamped version of the 1984′ “Machines (Or Back To Humans).”

The show brought the audience into a dystopian world through CGI robots which set the stage for a two-hour-plus dive into the band’s legacy catalog. Surprisingly, the performance highlighted vocals from the legendary Freddie Mercury with the help of modern technology.

The crowd heard Mercury and Brian May singing doing the lead vocals in the opening when the Machines are about to take over.

May, who created the “Machines” song together with Roger Taylor, said:

“The Robot Horde provide a narrative thread to our new show. In these days of artificial intelligence beginning to invade our whole lives, these mechanical guys personify robotic insurgence. In our still-developing current show, ‘Back To Humans’ is the soundtrack to us as humans reclaiming our control. ‘Machines’ and ‘Radio Ga Ga’ actually have a common ancestor, the beginnings of a collaboration between myself and Roger in the sessions for ‘The Works’ album in 1984. But we had different ideas of how it should develop, and the track split into two songs going in opposite directions … Roger piloting ‘Radio Ga Ga’ to completion and into a world-wide hit, and me taking the route of making ‘Machines’ into a kind of unending battle. Putting the new show together, it hit me that ‘Machines’ was more relevant than ever. So the idea came about of theming the show with a 21st century version of this battle — and, incidentally, bringing ‘Ga Ga’ and ‘Machines’ fittingly back together once again. And this stands very well with our long-standing belief that a rock show should be live and dangerous rather than performed to clicks and electronic backings.”

Taylor, on the other hand, said:

“‘Machines’ was born out of the electronica we originally explored on ‘Radio Ga Ga’ to create this sense of the battle between the electric side and the human side. Now at a time when it’s increasingly becoming a machines world and we’re all just trying to keep up, we felt it the perfect time to revive this idea of basically going back to humans.”

Taylor continued:

“Basically, it starts off where everything is electronic — electronic drums, everything, And what you have is the ‘human’ rock band sort of crashing in. What you wind up with is a battle between the two.”

After making a comeback in Queen’s current U.S. tour setlist, the “Machines (Or Back To Humans)” led the band to release the original track as a digital single and it has been available since November 10.

Originally penned by Brian and Roger nearly four decades ago, “Machines” became a pivotal element in the band’s current impressive live production.

The video of the live performance can be seen below.