Queen: The Complete Works (113 page)

Roger, Brian and John left from London on Sunday 6 January, with Freddie journeying from Munich via Paris due to bad weather. The set list was unchanged apart from a specially written ‘improvisation’ called ‘Rock In Rio Blues’, based on what was more commonly known as ‘Instrumental Inferno’ on prior tours. The venue was Barra da Tijuca, a specially built site with a capacity of 250,000 – this would turn out to be one of Queen’s biggest audiences, and one of the reasons they agreed to play in the first place. Gerry had arranged with the local Brazilian television station, Globo, to televise the festival throughout South America, while the band started negotiations with Globo about acquiring the rights to their segments, which were enthusiastically granted.

The first night, the band took the stage at two in the morning, though the audience’s enthusiasm hadn’t waned. In an ‘event’ that was widely reported in the British press, Freddie was apparently bombarded with rubbish when he appeared for the first encore performance of ‘I Want To Break Free’ in his usual wig, falsies and pink sweater; audio and video proof exists, however, that such an occurrence did not happen. (He was, however, booed, and promptly discarded the offending items, and they wouldn’t return for the following night.) Following the show, EMI held a party at the Copacabana, which was also televised all over South America. Having been thrown into the pool fully clothed, Brian got wind of the fact that hundreds of fans had gathered on the beach outside the hotel and spelled out ‘Queen’ in the sand with 1500 candles. The guitarist and his daughter went to see for themselves, mingling with the fans for several hours in preference to the glittering celebrity affair.

By the time of Queen’s second appearance, Rio had experienced torrential downpours, which turned the stadium into a veritable swamp. This didn’t dampen the spirits of the audience, though, and the band were touched by their enthusiasm. The difficulty of playing in the rain during the small hours shows in the band’s performance, however; amazingly, the band agreed for the show to be released, with a heavily edited video performance appearing on 13 May 1985 and entitled
Live In Rio
.

The following month, Brian was a guest DJ on Capital Radio, and talked briefly of how Rock In Rio had affected him: “We never quite believed that it was going to happen and we were going to get quarter of a million people a night or whatever, and it just actually happened. They all rolled up and one night it was pouring with rain and they were still there until two in the morning from four in the afternoon. It was very well-organized and very well-lit which is unusual, so you could actually see the audience very well, all in pools of different coloured lights. I think there is going to be a video of that some time and perhaps people will be able to see, but it was quite something, I must say. And there was the feeling of it being the first time, which it was, because there never was that much rock and roll in Rio. Now there is mate, I tell you!”

QUEEN WORKS! AUSTRALASIAN

& JAPANESE TOUR

13 APRIL TO 15 MAY 1985

Musicians:
John Deacon
(bass guitar)
, Brian May
(guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar on ‘Is This The World We Created...?’, ‘Love Of My Life’ and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’)
, 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:
‘Machines (Or “Back To Humans”)’
(intro)
, ‘Tear It Up’, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, ‘Under Pressure’, ‘Somebody To Love’ / ‘Killer Queen’ / ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’ / ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ / ‘Liar’, Improvisation, ‘It’s A Hard Life’, ‘Dragon Attack’ / ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Is This The World We Created...?’, ‘Love Of My Life’, Guitar Solo, ‘Brighton Rock’, ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, ‘Hammer To Fall’, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Radio Ga Ga’, ‘I Want To Break Free’, ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘God Save The Queen’, ‘Rock In Rio Blues’, ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’, ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On’

Itinerary, Australiasian tour:

April 13: Mount Smart Stadium, Auckland, New Zealand

April 16/17, 19/20: Sports and Entertainment Centre, Melbourne, Australia

April 25/26, 28/29: Entertainment Centre, Sydney, Australia

Itinerary, Japanese tour:

May 8/9: Budokan Hall, Tokyo

May 11: Yogishi Swimming Pool Auditorium, Tokyo

May 13: Aichi Auditorium, Nagoya

May 15: Castle Hall, Osaka

After yet another lengthy break, which afforded Freddie enough time to complete his first solo album, the band flew to New Zealand on 5 April to start rehearsals for their first Australasian tour in nearly a decade. The band took a week to get acquainted with their surroundings since it was their first – and only – appearance in New Zealand. The tour was destined to start on 11 April at Hawks Bay in Tamoana, with a third date on 14 April at Queen Elizabeth II Park in Christchurch, but ticket sales were poor – even the Auckland gig didn’t sell out.

The band’s first show on 13 April was memorable: Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet joined them on stage for a performance of ‘Jailhouse Rock’. Before the show, Freddie and Tony imbibed a little too much, which was noticeable whenever Freddie addressed the crowd. His first words of the night were, “Hello New Zealand, we’re gonna have one motherfucker of a time!” When introducing ‘Hammer To Fall’, he yelled, “Here’s one for all you heavy metal fans to have a good jerk-off to!” When Tony appeared for the first encore, the two messed up the words to ‘Jailhouse Rock’ by singing ‘Tutti Frutti’ instead. And, as luck would have it, this was the one Queen show that was broadcast all over the country.

The band moved on to Melbourne on 15 April to commence a four-night stand at the Sports and Entertainment Center there. The final night was dogged with technical problems: the lights gave out midway through the show and the sound fluctuated throughout as well, much to the audible annoyance of Freddie. Because the band had visited Phil Collins on their one night off (18 April), he duly repaid the compliment and later explained that, despite all the problems, the show was still enjoyable.

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’)