It was exactly one year ago today that I attended a Queen concert at the Assago Forum in Milano. To be perfectly honest, I hardly ever go to concerts, but how can one pass up the fun opportunity to experience a concert in another country? And I thought it would give me a chance to perhaps discover the answer to something that I'd always been curious about, namely, how audiences in non-English-speaking countries participate in a musical experience in the same way that I do, when they don't understand the words of the songs they are listening to. Cheering, clapping, the arms waving, whistling, that was all the same. But still, did the crowd know what they were cheering at? Was it just music, without any meaning behind it?

Touring with Queen to sing the parts that Freddy Mercury had sung was Paul Rogers. Somewhere in the middle of the concert he took a barstool, his guitar, and a microphone to the end of the runway, and with a lone spotlight pointed on him he recreated Freddy Mercury singing "Love of My Life." Here's a video taken from near my seat. Listen to these 11,000 people, let's assume mostly Italian, sing Love of My Life. For the first moments I forgot I was in Italy, as they sang loud and clear in English. After all, it sounded normal to me. Then the reality clicked about where I was, and it made the moment much more magical. It was one of those perfect moments, that come rarely in life, where all is aligned in the universe, and we were all speaking one common language, no translation necessary, No doubt, no doubt in my mind at all, that they totally knew what they were singing, that they totally got it. Listen for yourself...

See what's coming up at the Assago Forum (now called the Mediolanum Forum). Maybe there's a great concert when you'll be here. If you don't have a car you can still reach there by taking a train into Milan. Shuttles run from the MM2 Famagosta directly to the forum.