Sunday, July 13, marked the 40th anniversary of the historic and star-studded Live Aid charity concert, held simultaneously in London and Philadelphia. One of the most famous performances that took place that day was Queen’s unforgettable set at a packed Wembley Stadium in London.
Queen guitarist Brian May recently was interviewed about the event by San Antonio TV station WOAI. May admitted that he didn’t initially feel like the band’s Live Aid performance was that great, but he’s come to realize that it was one of the shining moments in the British rock legends’ history.
“I didn’t start off thinking it was the most incredible thing the world had ever seen,” he recalled. “I remember coming off and being very aware of the things which we hadn’t quite got right. … If someone had asked me as I came off stage, ‘Was that the greatest performance of your life?’ I would’ve said, ‘Hm, probably not,’ … but looking back, I can kind of see that everything was the way it was meant to be. And I think it was one of our finest hours, definitely one of Freddie’s finest hours.”
He added, “[T]he planets were aligned, and … the connection was incredible. The magic happened.”
More About Live Aid and Queen’s Preparation for the Performance
Live Aid was co-organized by Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof to raise money for famine relief in Africa. It followed on the heels of the star-studded 1984 charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” which Geldof co-wrote and which featured many of the U.K.’s biggest rock and pop stars.
Similarly, Live Aid included performances by a jaw-dropping lineup of British and American music stars.
Meanwhile, May told WOAI that, perhaps surprisingly, Mercury initially wasn’t that enthusiastic about playing the event.
“[H]e was kind of dragged into it by his heels a little bit,” Brian noted. “It’s not quite as it happened in the Bohemian Rhapsody movie, but having been dragged into it, mainly by me, as a matter of fact, he enveloped it.”
May said that once Queen did commit to performing at Live Aid, Mercury “just gave it his whole heart and soul, and he was determined that it would be something wonderful.”
Brian also suggested that Queen were not that intimidated by the size of the Wembley Stadium crowd that already had experience performing at large venues in South America.
“We played Buenos Aires and places in Rio [de Janeiro] … I mean, stupendously huge audiences, and we had learned what to do,” May explained. “We learned how to get across in that situation, particularly Freddie.”
He continued, “Freddie had this real magical way of reaching out to everybody in the audience. Everybody in the audience thought he was talking to them, even the guy at the back who was very shy, because Freddie, I think, remembered when he was the guy at the back, very shy. And Freddie had that magic. And I think it came out very strongly in Live Aid.”
About Queen’s Live Aid Set
Queen was given a cool 20 minutes to perform at Live Aid, and May recalled that the band had “been prepped by Geldof” with regards to what should be included in the set.
“He said, ‘Look, don’t f— about, boys,’” May remembered. “He said, ‘Play the hits. Don’t get clever.’ And we absolutely took it to heart. We did our rehearsal. We did little snips to the songs, and crammed as many as we could into that 20 minutes. Ran it, ran it, ran it, so that we knew it off by heart. And then, we just went on. … And it just went great.”
The set started with a partial version of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” followed by Queen’s 1984 hit “Radio Ga Ga.” Mercury then led Wembley Stadium in an iconic a cappella chant of “Ay Oh,” where he had the massive crowd gleefully singing some nonsense phrases along with him. Rounding out the set were the 1984 U.K. hit “Hammer to Fall,” the chart-topper “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” and a partial rendition of the anthem “We Will Rock You” that culminated with the classic “We Are the Champions.”
May Was Surprised About How Smoothly the Event Went
May said that when he was first told about the plans for the Live Aid event, he never expected for the concert to go as smoothly as it did.
“It sounded ludicrous, partly because there were so many people [that were] gonna be on the bill,” he explained. “How do you get people to change over between acts that fast? You would have to have an incredible amount of willingness from all parties. But on the day, it was all there. Everybody came in with this incredible feeling of ‘let’s make it work and let’s forget about our egos.’ It really is true.”
The Artists Were Focused on Making a Difference
Brian added, “I don’t remember another day like it in the whole of my life’s history. Everybody’s heart was in the right place. It’s like, we have to make this work for Bob because Bob will make it work for those starving kids.”
May also noted that he felt that the artists were very focused on inspiring the audience in attendance and on the charitable goal of the event, while perhaps not focusing on the massive number of people around the world who were watching at home.
“There was a lot at stake, but I don’t think we … we were conscious of the millions out there,” he maintained. “We were conscious of an audience which had to be entertained, and it was a special audience, and conscious that we were actually in an attempt to take over the world, to get rid of the [expletive] which had stopped children being saved from death. And everybody felt very strongly about it.”
In addition, May noted, “[A]t that time, there was such a general disenchantment with the way that governments were handling world poverty that everybody wanted to give it a shot. Everybody wanted to say, ‘Okay I was there. I tried. I put my bid in, and hopefully we will we will change the world.’ And I think it did change the world.”
