Queen with Adam Lambert

July 13 at the Air Canada Centre.

If Freddie Mercury delivered one lasting impression on the Air Canada Stage on Sunday night, it was that death doesn’t necessarily stop you from being the most riveting performer in the room.

Yes, you read that right: during the two-hour Queen show featuring the very much alive 2009 American Idol finalist Adam Lambert, Mercury, who tragically died from AIDS complications back in 1991, ended up being more charismatic over five minutes of vintage video footage than Lambert could muster over an entire concert.

Mercury performed a posthumous duet with co-founding band guitarist Brian May on “Love of My Life” about 10 songs into the set, and then later “traded” pre-encore stanzas with Lambert during the epic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” making the most of both appearances with his commanding vocals and confident delivery.

To be fair, Mercury’s magic spoke more about his ownership of the material than to Lambert’s shortcomings: for just over 21 years, he was the face and voice of Queen, one of rock’s most iconic groups.

With the death of Mercury and the retirement of bass player John Deacon immediately following Mercury’s passing, Queen these days is down to two originals: guitarist May, 66, and drummer Roger Taylor, 64.

They’ve recorded and toured with a succession of singers since, some long-term collaborators like Bad Company singer Paul Rodgers (who appeared with them in Toronto in 2006) and currently Lambert, who was born in 1982, the last year the Mercury-fronted version of Queen played T.O.

And depending which part of the show you tuned into, you could find fair arguments for the band’s further prolongation or extinction, such were the extremes demonstrated throughout the evening.

The show began somewhat auspiciously, as the perfectly coiffed Lambert, garbed in black leather and sunglasses, belted out a couple of Sheer Heart Attack numbers — “Now I’m Here” and “Stone Cold Crazy” — without exuding much distinctiveness, although both May, with his intricate fretwork, and Taylor, his still-powerful percussion now anchored by his son Rufus, were both on their game.

It wasn’t until the first of five costume changes and the double song punch “Seven Seas of Rhye” and “Killer Queen” that Lambert’s flamboyant personality took over, camping up the material a lot more than Mercury would have, but at least putting his own stamp on it.

Lambert’s dramatic flair carried him through “Somebody to Love” and “I Want It All,” providing his peak performances of the affair, the five-piece band behind him rising to the occasion.

The production then veered into maudlin sentimentality, as May moved up the ramp to a mini-stage positioned midway down the arena and talked about Mercury, imploring the audience to sing along and create “some magic” during an acoustic “Love of My Life” before the vocalist joined him on a large, oval video screen to help May finish the job.

Here’s where the show could have used an editor: between Taylor’s shaky lead vocals on Innuendo’s nostalgic “These are the Days” and his “Under Pressure” duet with Lambert (couldn’t they have found a David Bowie video for Taylor’s vocal?), the concert veered into Spinal Tap territory with a succession of instrumental solos. Guitarist May’s 20-minute stretch was especially tedious, relying on sustained tones and scratching instead of some of the fiery fretwork and lyrical beauty he’s capable of executing.

Perhaps my tolerance level would have been a lot higher if all those solos hadn’t been clumped together, but it put a real damper on the show’s momentum, robbing the audience of the potential to hear a couple of Queen favourites like “You’re My Best Friend” or “Keep Yourself Alive” that were omitted from the set list.

The show rebounded a bit with an energetic “Tie Your Mother Down” and in the next few numbers showed the tremendous breadth of Queen’s rock and pop evolution: the insipid electro pop-driven “Radio Ga Ga “ (which I place at a level of annoyance just below Starship’s rank “We Built This City”), the ’50s-inspired twist “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (here Lambert missed the chance to exercise his inner Elvis), over-the-top “The Show Must Go On” and pop’s classic mini-operetta “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

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By the way, if you’re wondering how Queen recreated the complex choral trade-and-response in the middle of the song, the answer is, they didn’t. Instead, they rolled the 1975 video and chimed in with live performance once the movement was finished. It was an acceptable cheat, and for the 13,000 or so in attendance, it was the concert’s highlight.

For the energetic encores of “We Will Rock You/We are the Champions,” singer Lambert donned a crown and led the crowd through a sing-along, a further testament to the band’s infectious material.

As to whether he deserved to be considered royalty, you’ll be able to decide for yourselves when the band returns to the ACC on July 28, with an earlier start time of 7:30 p.m.

At the very least, you’ll enjoy Mercury in retrograde.