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| Biography |
| Queen's first ever full length video was released in September 1984. We Will Rock You was filmed during the bands 1981 Montreal Concerts. During September, Queen had no fewer than nine albums in the UK top 200. 1985 was the year of Rock In Rio. It was billed as the biggest rock festival to be held anywhere in the world and Queen wore headlining the event. The whole festival was recorded for broadcast throughout South America. but Queen were the only band to obtain the rights to release their performance on video - Live In Rio was released in May 1985. The band performed their first ever concert in New Zealand on April 13th 1985 at the Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland. The band were met outside their hotel on arrival by a group of chanting anti-apartheid demonstrators. Tony Hadley, lead singer with British band Spandau Ballet flew over from Australia, where his band were on tour, to see the Queen show - and was honoured to be asked to join Queen on stage for their encore. Freddie's first solo album, MR BAD GUY, was released on April 29th, whilst the band were on tour in Australia. The gig in Melbourne had to be played with no lighting rig at all, as the whole computer system that controlled the lights had broken down. After an Australian tour peppered with problems, not least being the incessant rain, the band flew across to Japan. Their concert at the Tokyo Olympic Swimming Pool was filmed by NHK to be shown on network Japanese TV. July 13th 1985 was a day that went down in history, as the Live Aid Global Jukebox took the world by storm from London's vast Wembley Stadium and from Philadelphia in the USA. Queen were just one of a multitude of top bands who all performed a 20 minute set. The World was watching, and Queen were unanimously voted, by press and public alike, as the band that stole the show. That event was a turning point for Queen. They had decided sometime previously to take a break from each other, but that day brought them all together with renewed vigour and enthusiasm. One Vision was the first release to come form that new inspiration. Queen were approached by Russell Mulcahy to record the soundtrack for his first feature film, a fantasy tale about an immortal Scotsman called Highlander. In an interview Mulcahy stated that Queen had been the first band he thought of for the score. In March 1986 John formed a new band called The Immortals to write and record some music for a forthcoming film called Biggles. They recorded just one track - No Turning Back, and the band folded. On June 2nd Queen released their 14th album, the soundtrack to Highlander called A KIND OF MAGIC. The album entered the UK chart at number one and remained in the top five for thirteen consecutive weeks. On June 7th the Queen machine was in action again, as the band embarked on their Magic Tour Of Europe. The first UK gig was Newcastles St James Park football stadium.The band, and promoter Harvey Goldsmith, donated ALL the proceeds from that concert to the International Save The Children Fund. On July 11th the Queen Tornado, as Freddie had dubbed it, hit London and two sold out shows at Wembley Stadium. During these, four enormous inflatables, modelled on the characters from the Kind Of Magic album, were released from amongst the audience into the night. The second nights show was filmed by Tyne Tees, again directed by Gavin Taylor, to be shown on TV at a later date. When that concert was finally shown on TV, it became the first ever simulcast between Channel Four and the Independent Radio Network in Britain. This feat has never since been repealed, possibly because in order to achieve this, a satellite dish had to be delivered to every single independent radio station in the UK so they could receive the sound by satellite. On 27th July Queen made history again (something of a habit with this band) when they played the beautiful Nepstadion in Budapest, Hungary. It was the first time a major rock band had played a stadium date in the Eastern Bloc, and it was completely sold out well in advance. The concert was filmed by the Hungarian State Film Agency, MAFILM, in connection with Queen films. They had to commandeer every 35mm camera in Hungary to film it! On August 9th the band flew by specially redecorated "Magic Helicopter" into Knebworth Park, Hertfordshire, for the final date on the Magic Tour. It was the biggest show on the tour with an estimated audience. of over 120 thousand people. It caused one of the biggest traffic jams in history as everyone tried to arrive in plenty of time. Over ONE MILLION people saw Queen on that European tour, in excess of 400 thousand in the UK alone. |
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