Queensrÿche were an anomaly in an era of music that thrived on excess. They found success by writing thought-provoking, complicated music that appealed to fans who wanted “just a little more substance” to their music. 

Founding member and former frontman Geoff Tate will perform that band’s classic concept album, Operation: Mindcrime, in its entirety for the last time when he visits The Clyde Theatre on Sunday, April 13, with special guest Tomás McCarthy.

Something deeper

Operation: Mindcrime was released in 1988 as the promising young band from Seattle were just starting to make waves on the hard rock scene. 

In a musical landscape full of bands that seemed to only want to sing about girls, drinking, and having fun, Queensrÿche stood out as the “thinking man’s band.” They were consumed more with pushing the boundaries of what hard rock could be than pushing the boundaries of excess. 

“Queensrÿche were never a scene band,” Tate said in a Whatzup interview. “We never followed the rules or what everybody else was doing. We were somehow in our own conjured-up world, I guess. 

“We started in Seattle. There wasn’t a music scene at all. We didn’t play live until we made a record. And we got signed, not because we played live, but because we made a record and they liked it. We did not do things the usual way. In retrospect, it worked out for us.”

Timeless concept

Queensrÿche’s guitarist at the time, Chris DeGarmo, and Tate had discussed the idea of writing and recording a concept album for a couple of years before Operation: Mindcrime was released in 1988. 

“We both were very enamored with concept records that came out in the ’60s and ’70s from Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Yes, and we just envisioned that it was something we’d like to do,” Tate said, 

They knew it would be challenging and the idea “sat in our heads for a couple of years,” Tate said. “One day I had an idea and wrote out this story, and Chris liked the concept. We brought it to the band, and they liked the idea, so we did it. 

“It was exactly what we thought it would be: an incredibly challenging record to make.”

That idea came to Tate while he was spending some time in Montreal in 1987, where he found himself in an old Catholic church and later met the leader of an anarchist group in a bar. 

These two encounters became the seeds of the storyline for Operation: Mindcrime, a story that follows Nikki as he is manipulated into joining a secret organization dedicated to revolution.

While Tate was able to outline the story quickly, it was much more of an arduous process to write the music that would ultimately tell the story. 

The songwriting sessions took about eight months, mainly because the band were writing in a different way, fitting the music to the story rather than writing music first, then adding lyrics. 

Just over a year after conception, Operation: Mindcrime was released on May 3, 1988, receiving immediate critical praise. Commercially, though, it wasn’t the immediate hit everyone thought it would be with its peak chart position topping out at No. 50. 

“It sold almost exactly what our previous album sold,” Tate said, referring to 1986’s Rage for Order.

After releasing two singles and getting very little airplay, an invitation from MTV to make a video for “Eyes of a Stranger” sparked the fire. Almost immediately after the video started being shown, the album went gold, platinum, and eventually double-platinum.

Many of the topics broached in the storyline of Operation: Mindcrime are still relevant, nearly four decades after the album’s release. Tate said he is only mildly surprised by this fact. 

“The album is kind of set in an atmosphere of social change, and I think we are always experiencing social change,” he said. “I think the classic themes of the power struggle between the rich and poor and the educated and uneducated people, the influence of narcotics on the population, and the political ideas within are topics that are still very prevalent in our society. Maybe that’s why the album seems timeless in a lot of respects.” 

Mixing in new material

Tate’s current tour celebrates that album in the best way possible. 

Called Geoff Tate’s Operation: Mindcrime — The Final Chapter, the tour is indeed the last time the 66-year-old plans to play the album in its entirety.

“I get so many requests for this show, not just from fans, but also from promoters around the world,” Tate said. “They love the show, and they keep asking me to do it all the time. So, I said, ‘OK, I’m going to play it one more time.’ ”

The show’s setlist, Tate said, will consist of the entirety of Operation: Mindcrime, played in sequential order, followed by selections from 2006’s Operation: Mindcrime II, a possible new song, and other career highlights. 

“Then if we get asked for an encore, we have a whole array, a plethora if you will, of songs to choose from,” he said. “We let the audience call out and make suggestions, which is kind of fun and keeps my band on their toes.”

You may be asking, “A new song?” 

Yes, Tate said his band are finishing up music for the completion of the Mindcrime storyline, with the tour coinciding with the release of that new material. 

“It all kind of fits hand in hand,” he said. 

But fans will not be able to get instant gratification upon the traditional release of a full album this year. Tate and company are doing things a bit differently this time around. 

“Instead of releasing the album in full right away, we are releasing it song by song,” he said. 

The complete album will get released at some point, but we will probably have to wait until next year. 

“It’s kind of an interesting way to do it,” Tate said. “I think you focus a lot more on the songs that way.”

Tate said fans who choose to attend this show can expect an all-around world-class experience. 

“Well, to start, it’s a great sounding show,” he said. “I have this amazing front of house sound manager and, I think, with all the sound technicians I’ve worked with, he has got to be the best. We also have an amazing lighting director who has come up with this amazing light show. I don’t know how it works, but what I do know is that when I am standing on stage and all these lasers go off around me, it’s like I’m transported to this other world. 

“I’m happy, very fortunate and humbled that people love the story so much and that they want to hear this music. It doesn’t get better than that.”