by Georg Purvis
On 21 April, the band flew to Sydney, where they relaxed for a few days before another four-night residency. Brian took advantage of the break and flew to the Great Barrier Reef with his wife, where the two learned to scuba dive. On the 27th, Elton John and John Reid, Queen’s former manager, were in Sydney during Elton’s own Australian tour. Reid treated Brian and John to a night at the Sydney Opera House, while Freddie, Roger and Elton soaked up the local nightlife.
The set list for this tour changed little, though ‘Rock In Rio Blues’ stayed in (it was renamed ‘Tokyo Blues’ during the Japanese leg), and only two cover versions, ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’ and ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On’, were performed. Freddie’s voice was in a better state than it had been at the beginning of the Works! tour, perhaps because the schedule wasn’t as rigorous as it had been the previous year: throughout the month that Queen were on the road, they only played fourteen shows, compared to 29 the year before.
Nevertheless, the band soldiered on to Japan, where – surprise! – the set list remained exactly the same. The band failed to include ‘Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)’ for some reason, though Freddie once again played the ‘My Fairy King’ / ‘The March Of The Black Queen’ improvisation that had started in South Africa the previous year. After the brief, six-day Japanese tour concluded, the band had every intention of calling it quits (again). But they had agreed to appear at Live Aid, not realizing the impact it would have on their career.
LIVE AID
13 JULY 1985
Musicians: John Deacon (bass guitar), Brian May (guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar on ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and ‘Is This The World We Created...?’), Freddie Mercury (vocals, piano, electric rhythm guitar on ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’), Roger Taylor (drums, electronic drums, vocals), Spike Edney (keyboards, piano, vocals, guitar on ‘Hammer To Fall’)
Repertoire: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (intro), ‘Radio Ga Ga’, ‘Hammer To Fall’, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘Is This The World We Created...?’
While on tour in Australia, Spike Edney was contacted by Bob Geldof (Spike had been an occasional trombonist in Geldof’s band The Boomtown Rats), telling him he was setting up an event in July to raise money for famine relief in Africa and asking if Queen would like to be involved. The band, however, were fed up with touring and were planning on taking the rest of the year and the following year off, before possibly recording again in 1987. Spirits were at an all-time low, which Spike relayed to Bob.
Undeterred, Bob called the band directly in Japan, and tried to sell them on the idea. The band declined once again but, over a meal in their Japanese hotel, finally agreed to say yes. They started rehearsals for the Live Aid event at the Shaw Theatre on 10 July, treating it like a proper show and not a one-off gig, knowing quite well that a lot of people were going to be watching. “We’ve always had our quiet periods and comebacks,” Brian said at the time. “Geldof called Live Aid a jukebox, so it seemed obvious to simply play the hits and get off.”
On the day of the concert, the band were understandably nervous, but at 6.44 pm GMT, comedians Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones simply walked on stage and announced, “Her Majesty ... Queen.” Enter the band, and their total shock and wide-eyed wonder is apparent from the minute they are seen on camera. It was like a homecoming for them: they hadn’t played London since September 1984, and the reception showed just how appreciated they were. After running around the stage for a few seconds, Freddie settled down at the piano and opened the set with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Playing only the first half up until the guitar solo (playback tapes were not allowed, and there was no way Queen were going to attempt to sing the operatic section), the band then kicked into ‘Radio Ga Ga’ and ‘Hammer To Fall’.
The performance was not without its problems: during Brian’s solo in ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, he was obscured by a piercing stab of feedback for the first half, with the rest of the solo sadly muted. (One of Geldof’s other caveats had been that no band was allowed a soundcheck, which didn’t sit too well with Queen, but it was one of the sacrifices they had to make.) ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are The Champions’ followed, and even the most reluctant of audience members found themselves singing along.
Three hours later, at 9.48 pm, after Wham!’s performance and just before Paul McCartney’s moving finale, Brian and Freddie were perched on stools at the front of the stage to perform ‘Is This The World We Created...?’, which was met with applause despite being marred by the ever-present feedback. Later, Freddie appeared with other luminaries for a star-studded singalong of the previous year’s hit single, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’
It was momentous, and the general consensus was that Queen were the band of the day. Despite one minor timing issue in ‘Hammer To Fall’, in which Freddie called for the ending of the song too early, the band had risen to the challenge and did not disappoint. By November, a BBC poll named Queen’s performance at Live Aid the greatest live gig of all time, beating out Jimi Hendrix’s Woodstock performance and The Sex Pistols’ concert at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1976.
The band would speak highly of Live Aid for years after. John said, “The day was fabulous – people forgot that element of [competition] ... It was a good morale-booster for us too, because it showed us the strength of support we had in England, and it showed us what we had to offer as a band.” Brian agreed, saying, “I think Live Aid proved we didn’t need backdrops or [the] cover of darkness ... I’ll remember Live Aid till the day I die.” With their enthusiasm apparently restored, the band recanted on their previous decision to pack it all in and became an even more cohesive unit than before. In April 1986, an article in The Sun was given the title “How Live Aid Saved Our Queen”, which sounds exaggerated but is actually pretty close to the truth.
1986
MONTREUX GOLDEN ROSE POP FESTIVAL
11 MAY 1986
Musicians: John Deacon (bass guitar), Brian May (guitar, vocals), Freddie Mercury (vocals), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals)
Repertoire: ‘One Vision’, ‘A Kind Of Magic’, ‘Friends Will Be Friends’, ‘Hammer To Fall’
Just as they had done in May 1984, Queen returned to the Montreux Golden Rose Pop Festival to mime to four songs: three from the new album A Kind Of Magic (‘One Vision’, the title track and ‘Friends Will Be Friends’), and ‘Hammer To Fall’ from The Works. Like the first time, Freddie made it obvious that he was miming (though the others tried their hardest to make it appear real) by positioning his microphone as far away from his mouth as possible. This footage was later released on the 2003 DVD Greatest Video Hits 2.
MAGIC TOUR
7 JUNE TO 9 AUGUST 1986
Musicians: John Deacon (bass guitar), Brian May (guitar, vocals, keyboards on ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’, acoustic guitar on ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘Is This The World We Created...?’, ‘(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care’, ‘Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart)’, ‘Tutti Frutti’ and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’), Freddie Mercury (vocals, piano, electric rhythm guitar on ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals, tambourine on ‘(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care’, ‘Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart)’ and ‘Tutti Frutti’, effects on ‘A Kind Of Magic’), Spike Edney (piano, keyboards, rhythm guitar on ‘Hammer To Fall’)
Repertoire: ‘One Vision’, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, ‘In The Lap Of The Gods... Revisited’ / ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’ / ‘Tear It Up’, ‘A Kind Of Magic’, Vocal Improvisation, ‘Under Pressure’, ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’, ‘I Want To Break Free’, ‘Impromptu’, Guitar Solo, ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘Is This The World We Created...?’, ‘(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care’, ‘Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart)’, ‘Tutti Frutti’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Hammer To Fall’, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘Radio Ga Ga’
, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘Friends Will Be Friends’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘God Save The Queen’, ‘Big Spender’, ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’, ‘Immigrant
Song’, ‘Gimme Some Lovin”, ‘Tavaszi Szél Vizet Áraszt’
Itinerary:
June 7: Rasunda Fotbollstadion, Stockholm, Sweden
June 11/12: Groenoordhalle, Leiden, Holland
June 14: Hippodrome de Vincennes, Paris, France
June 17: Forêt Nationale, Brussels, Belgium
June 19: Groenoordhalle, Leiden, Holland
June 21: Maimarktgelände, Mannheim, Germany
June 26: Waldbuehne, Berlin, Germany
June 28/29: Olympiahalle, Munich, Germany
July 1/2: Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switzerland
July 5: Slane Castle, Dublin, Eire
July 9: St James Park, Newcastle
July 11/12: Wembley Stadium, London
July 16: Maine Road, Manchester
July 19: Müngersdorfer Stadion, Cologne, Germany
July 21/22: Stadthalle, Vienna, Austria
July 27: Nepstadion, Budapest, Hungary
July 30: Amphitheatre, Frejus, France (rescheduled from Cannes, 29 August, and Nice, 30 August)
August 1: Monumental Plaza de Toros, Barcelona, Spain (rescheduled from 31 July)
August 3: Estadio Rayo Vallecano, Madrid, Spain (rescheduled from 2 August)
August 5: Estadio Municipal, Marbella, Spain (rescheduled from 4 August)
August 9: Knebworth Park, Stevenage, Herts
By June 1986, it had been nearly a year, excluding the Montreux Golden Rose Pop Festival, since Queen last appeared on stage, and demand for the band to tour again was becoming overwhelming. Originally, 1986 was to be an off year, much as 1983 had been, because the Queen Works! tours hadn’t been the rejuvenation the band needed after the stressful Hot Space tours of 1982. Live Aid changed everything, however, and the band became excited once again about performing to an audience. In addition, Queen had become one of the hottest tickets in Europe and the United Kingdom; when venues were announced and tickets went on sale, most shows sold out almost instantly.
As with every tour, the band restructured their set list to incorporate new material and generally reshuffle the old favourites. From the new album, only four of the nine songs were integrated (‘One Vision’, ‘A Kind Of Magic’, ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’ and ‘Friends Will Be Friends’), while there were surprising inclusions of ‘In The Lap Of The Gods ... Revisited’ (last performed in 1977) and a rock ‘n’ roll acoustic medley of ‘(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care’, ‘Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart)’ and ‘Tutti Frutti’. Gone were the older compositions: ‘Great King Rat’, ‘Stone Cold Crazy’, ‘Somebody To Love’, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, ‘Killer Queen’, ‘Brighton Rock’ and ‘Jailhouse Rock’ were all omitted to make way for newer material, though ‘Liar’ was used as an instrumental link between ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’ and ‘Tear It Up’.
The most surprising omission was ‘Somebody To Love’, which had been performed on almost every tour since 1977 and was a highlight of any given show. ‘It’s A Hard Life’, too, wasn’t considered for the tour, and it’s been suggested by fans that Freddie wanted to spend more time entertaining the crowd rather than being stuck at a piano. For the first time in years, ‘Now I’m Here’ was performed straight, with no additional songs inserted to form a medley.
The band started rehearsals for the tour in May 1986 at JVC Studios, taking a day in the middle to film the promotional video for ‘Friends Will Be Friends’ and thereby offering a look at the stage the band would be using for the tour: sixty-four feet in length, with two forty-foot wings, giving Freddie nearly 6000 square feet to run around in.
Midway through the rehearsals, Roger sat down for an interview and hyped the upcoming tour effectively: “We are going to play on the biggest stage ever built at Wembley, with the greatest light show ever seen. I think we are probably the best live band in the world at the moment, and we are going to prove it. No one who comes to see us will be disappointed,” adding humorously that the general effect would be “bigger than bigness itself. It’ll make Ben-Hur look like The Muppets.” It’s hard to disagree with him: while tours by U2, The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd in the later part of the 1980s would take excess to a whole new level and overshadow the Magic tour, Queen’s final tour was the biggest of its day.
Unfortunately, America missed out on the tour yet again: sales of ‘One Vision’ and A Kind Of Magic hadn’t been encouraging, and the band weren’t willing to take such a massive stage set-up from coast to coast. Surprisingly, Japan was not included in the itinerary either, nor was Australia or New Zealand. There were rumours that the beginning of 1987 would see the band back on stages around the world, but there’s considerable evidence that Freddie knew that the Knebworth concert would be his last. “I think it was somewhere in Spain,” Brian explained in 2003, “there was a little argument that broke out, and John got quite iffy about something, and Freddie turned around and said, ‘Well, I’m not going to be doing this forever, this is probably the last time’, and that was a bit of a jolt. I didn’t know if that was an instant response or if there was something else on his mind ... I think he really knew what he was going to be dealing with.”
Support throughout the tour alternated between The Bangles, Fountainhead, Big Country, Chris Rea, Status Quo, The Alarm, Craaft, Gary Moore, Belouis Some, Level 42, INXS and Marillion. (In Mannheim, Marillion’s lead vocalist, Fish, joined Queen on stage during ‘Tutti Frutti’, providing additional vocals, while Brian repaid the compliment in Cologne by appearing during Marillion’s set on ‘Market Square Heroes’.) Fans, however, would grow impatient during any given support act’s set and start throwing items at the stage in an attempt to speed up the process. Perhaps the most unique support band on the tour was Z’Zi Labour in Budapest, who performed a version of The Rolling Stones’ ‘Honky Tonk Women’ backed by a chorus of women dressed in peasant costumes.
The tour started on 7 June in Stockholm and was received rapturously, though the set list was marginally different from how it would end up being: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ followed ‘I Want To Break Free’, and ‘Friends Will Be Friends’ wasn’t yet performed. (It would be introduced in Holland and was given a full rendition for the first two performances there; the remainder of the tour featured a heavily abridged version.) For the remainder of the dates, the standard set list would be changed around little. Apart from occasional performances of ‘Big Spender’, ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’, ‘Gimme Some Lovin” – as well as one-offs in the form of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’ and the traditional Hungarian folk song ‘Tavaszi Szél Vizet Áraszt’ – the band played it safe and stayed the course. Surprisingly though, ‘Jailhouse Rock’, which had been performed on at least one date per tour in the past, wasn’t performed at all this time.
The shows progressed through Europe during June and early July, hitting all the usual hot spots prior to playing Slane Castle in Dublin on 5 July. Unfortunately, during this first show back on home ground the band were forced to stop after ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’ due to a drunken fight, causing Freddie to roar his disapproval at the crowd; Brian was later hit in the head with a beer can, almost refusing to perform the encore as a result. Thankfully, the following night’s show in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne went better than expected, with the show sold out within an hour and all proceeds donated to the Save The Children Fund.
The next two dates were Queen’s genuine homecoming, and have been regarded, perhaps through a veil of sentimentality, as the band’s finest shows ever. These Wembley concerts almost had to be cancelled, however: Queen’s pre-built stage was so huge that it wasn’t able to fit into the venue, but after a major reconstruction, the road crew were able to come up with an alternate design that worked more comfortably. For these two shows, during ‘A Kind Of Magic’, four oversized inflatable dummies were let loose into the stadium as an
added effect. While Brian and Roger’s dummies were dragged into the audience, John and Freddie’s floated away in freedom, with the vocalist ending up in a bemused family’s garden several miles away.
The first night was partially filmed as a camera test for the following night: Queen had decided to film and record both shows for a planned live video and album. (The video wouldn’t be released until 1990, and the album would follow two years later, while ‘Is This The World We Created...?’ from the first night and ‘Hammer To Fall’ from the second were included on Live Magic in December 1986.) The second night was also broadcast as a radio and television simulcast on 25 October. The show, titled Real Magic, was watched by 3.5 million people and was even broadcast in America during Westwood One’s Superstar Concert.
After the second concert, the band appeared at Kensington Roof Gardens in London for an after-show party, giving an impromptu performance as Dicky Hart And The Pacemakers (with Samantha Fox and Gary Glitter assisting on additional vocals), providing rollicking renditions of at least ‘Tutti Frutti’ and ‘Sweet Little Rock And Roller’, though the full set is not known.
Following a date in Manchester, the band’s UK concerts were finished for the tour (except for Knebworth, which was added in haste after tickets for the band’s home country sold out quickly). They returned to Germany for a date in Cologne which marked Brian’s thirty-ninth birthday; he therefore threw in a snippet of ‘’39’ before ‘Love Of My Life’. ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’, a rare song to be played during the Magic tour, was also performed following ‘Tutti Frutti’, but, sadly, these songs, in addition to the remainder of the show, will never be seen: Janos Zsombolyai, director of the band’s show in Budapest, overtaped it later because of the cost of VHS tapes.
