They never really went away, but you can’t help thinking Queensryche is back.
The Seattle band is revisiting the story that launched it into rock stardom in 1988, “Operation: Mindcrime.” The album went platinum and remains one of the greatest accomplishments of the 1980s heavy metal era.
In March, Queensryche released “Operation: Mindcrime II,” which ties up the story of Nikki, the heroin addict-turned-revolutionary-turned-unwitting-hitman who was thrown in jail for the murder of his beloved Sister Mary. The band performs three consecutive nights at The Moore theater in Seattle, where it will play “Operation: Mindcrime” I and II, in their entireties, along with some other Queensryche favorites.
It would be a mistake to dismiss the new album as an attempt by a band to recapture the commercial success it once had.
“It’s something we’ve been planning on doing for many years,” singer Geoff Tate said in a phone interview on Monday. “When we wrote the first one, we left it kind of open-ended … and we planned on finishing the story after the ‘Empire’ album.”
“Empire,” released in 1990, became the band’s biggest commercial success and led to an excitement to produce other albums, which left the “Mindcrime” sequel on the shelf, Tate said.
The story picks up 18 years after Nikki was tossed in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. When he gets out, his only objective is getting revenge on Dr. X, the maniacal mastermind who set Nikki up.
“It’s about what revenge does to a person,” Tate said. “How it eats away at you and, ultimately, what happens when you attain that revenge. Does it relieve you of any guilt? Does it make you feel better? In this case, it’s neither.”
Talking from a truck stop about an hour outside of Anaheim, Calif., Tate stressed that he and his bandmates aren’t worried about album sales.
“If you love what you do and you stick to it, at some point you’ll collide with public taste,” Tate said. “Then you’ll fall away from it and, at some point, you’ll collide again. It’s one of those things that you can’t really count on, or get upset about, or get happy about, really. You have to find happiness in the accomplishment of what you’re doing.”
Those who show up to the epic production at The Moore will be treated to an elaborate Broadway-like show, with scene changes, set changes, actors on stage and video screens moving the story along while the music acts as a soundscape.
And fans who want to hear some of the band’s other hits won’t be left out.
“We’ve been getting asked back for an encore and, at that point, we change the mood of the entire concert,” Tate said. “The ‘Mindcrime’ story is a very emotional kind of journey … and we found a way to sort of bring everybody together is to have a sort of sing-along at the end of the show with some familiar tracks.”
Photo by Greg Watermann, Rhino Records
Queensryche: Bassist Eddie Jackson (left), guitarist Michael Wilton, drummer Scott Rockenfield, singer Geoff Tate and guitarist Mike Stone.
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