VIDEO OF THE MONTH Queen – Live Aid 1985

Queen – Live Aid 1985

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Before Live Aid Queen were all but washed up. They seemed to have been around forever. By all accounts they were weary of playing together. 1984’s The Works looked like being their last – even though it did feature once of May’s best riffs- Hammer To Fall. But Live Aid was to change everything. Here was a band who knew how to play to vast amounts of people. Tightly rehearsed and cleverly running all the songs into one long montage, all across the country people looked up at their TV’s and said as one,  ‘you know, I’d forgotten Queen were that good’

Opening with Bohemian Rhapsody and then tearing into Radio Ga Ga, Queen took this monster gig and made it their own. Freddie’s brilliant stagecraft and rapport with the audience were never better – and this video gives you a really good flavour of the short-n-sweet 20 minute set. From the call-and-response vocal warm-up exercises through the synchronised clapping for Radio Ga Ga and the sing-a-long for We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions, this is stadium pop rock as it should be done. Voted the greatest live performance ever in a BBC poll in 2005 – and not without good reason.

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