Rock's greatest Front Man

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dropKickMurphy

dropKickMurphy

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...or woman

Who's yours?

To me, a great front man (or woman) has to combine a number of qualities:

Vocal ability is obviously critical. But equally important is the performance ability....the blend of charisma, dynamic stage presence, and energy that can totally command an audience of any size. Which is why bands with a great front man are always at their best when performing live.

Lastly, to be a great front man, you need to be part of a great band; the other members need to be among the very best rock musicians in the world. The front man is the key to blending all this talent into something that transcends the sum of the individual talents.
Guys like Jagger, Springsteen, Tyler, and Robert Plant come to mind.

But what sets my choice apart from those guys is his voice. IMO, he could out sing them all.

There simply will never be another Freddie Mercury.
Queen's defining moment had to be when they took the Wembley stage at Live Aid in 1985. Among all the legendary talent performing at Live Aid, Mercury and Queen blew everyone away; and by pretty much unanimous consent, they absolutely stole the show.
This 20 minute performance was rated, in a 2005 poll of music industry insiders, as the greatest live concert performance in the history of Rock and Roll.

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Before I scrolled down and saw your whole post, Freddie was my choice, with no one else in contention :rockon:
 
Can't say that you're wrong.

But Roger Daltrey of The Who deserves an honorable mention.
 
It begins with Freddy. The voice, the stage presence, the sheer joy.

Then its in no particular order: Daltrey, Jagger, Plant, Ronnie James Dio, Tyler, Bowie, Ozzy.
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Put me down for Roger Daltrey.


Of course, The 'Oo is the greatest band eva, by a wide margin, so I may be a bit biased.
 
As soon as I saw the thread title, I thought Freddy Mercury.
And as you stated, the rest of the band also has to be great.
Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon together with Freddy made up one of the greatest rock bands of all-time.
They've been my favorite since the 70's and they will always remain my favorite.
 
Frank Zappa.

If you ever saw him live, you know what I mean.
 
Johnny Rzeznik is the most gorgeous by far.
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I have to go with Daltrey although Mercury is a good third choice after Jagger. Keep in mind that some of us in our sixties like the earlier acts.
 
No offense to anybody, but I never quite got Queen and Freddie. Such are the variables of personal taste.

As far as a rock front man goes, I'm going to nominate Bob Marley even though his genre was technically not rock. I saw him before he hit it huge and I was stunned at his stage presence which was and is still the best I have ever seen. He had an arena of people who had barely heard him before in the palm of his hand in about 5 minutes.

Today's music (rock, at least) doesn't have anybody that really stands out, but one guy I always thought could hang with anybody from back in the day is Scott Weiland.

He's got the look, the pipes and the self-destructive personality and history. He ain't Freddy Mercury, but he is mercurial.
 
There are of course the usual suspects: Mick Jagger, Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen; it's difficult to argue with any of them.

Having seen Frank Zappa I will say he is extremely underrated and vastly under appreciated; however, I personally would put him and Steven Tyler just a notch below the group above in the next tier.

Two names that haven't been mentioned that are personal favorites of mine: George Thorogood and Bob Marley.

I saw Marley several times, including one of the very last performances he ever did at, of all place the Hynes Auditorium; I'm thinking that was in 1980 or '81. It was one of the strangest mixes of crowds I ever attended - Cambridge scholarly types to my left, and skinheads to my right - but I have never been to a concert before or since where the performer put the entire crowd on such a roller coaster of emotions with such ease and precision, from upbeat songs that had everyone standing and cheering one moment to poignant ballads that had the whole place in such rapt attention you could practically hear a pin drop the next song.

Thorogood was another master of controlling the crowd and I saw him in an odd venue as well, the Bradford Theatre around 1982. This was before he became well known and he played for well over three hours, maybe four hours, and did four encores. It got to the point it was so late that the cops ordered the house lights on but he kept playing and playing, and I could see a cop on the side of the stage arguing with a roadie, threatening to literally pull the plug. After the show I asked the guy about the conversation and he said he told the cop if he pulled the plug it would send 10,000 volts of electricity through the circuit, instantly killing the performers. The cop bought it, and George kept playing.
 
Freddie Mercury is probably the correct answer to this question, however I am going to go with Diamond David Lee Roth because......Well Just because.......As much of an egotistical douche bag as DLR is, I can't help but love him!

HummalababylazeebalaboobalahummalababylazeebalaBOP!!!!!
 
Bruce Dickinson. Rob Halford. Peter Steele. Maynard James Keenan. Dio. Jim Morrison. Sebastian Bach (not really into Skid Row). Chris Cornell. Glenn Danzig. John Bush. Geoff Tate. Eric Adams. James LaBrie.


  • Not into Queen, but, it's obvious that Mercury had serious talent.
 
Has to be Plant for me, with honorable mentions to
Mercury, Jagger, Bowie eta can't believe I forgot morrison d'oh

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