For Queen fans,
the special memories taken from seeing a live show
are not just about what you’ve seen, but also where you saw it.
Over the years,
Queen have brought the house down in pretty much every around the globe,
whether it be in a hall, theatre, arena, stadium,
country park or even on a palace roof.
And along the way, as Brian and Roger now explain,
there's something truly special
about performing in some of the world's most... Iconic Venues.
Certain places have a great
a great vibe and, a great history.
I would say Madison Square Garden, the top of the list in New York,
that was a mythical place for us, and we knew Zeppelin had played there.
First time we played it, it was like, ‘whoa,
we’re treading in these… ’and also these huge,
you'd hear about boxing matches at Madison Square Garden.
It was a big name, but we didn't know. We'd never been.”
When you do Madison Square Garden the first time,
it's always a big thing. And we used to love places like the L.A. Forum
because they're just great. They're great places.
They've got something, it's something magical.
And of course, the audience are great.
The Forum in L.A. is a similar kind of gig
and I remember seeing people playing there in the early days and thinking,
‘Oh my God, if we ever played here,
what would that be like? You know?’
And it became something which we loved.
We played it. I don't know how many times we played down here.
I love the forum.
It's called something else now because it's corporate,
it's been, has a different name on it,
but to us it's The Forum.”
Taking the Queen show to such a differing variety of venues
can present a range of challenges,
and so extra measures have to be adopted
to make sure the audience still get the full impact.
“It's funny, there's so many things
that go into the making of a show,
how good it is, how well it comes over.
I mean, some places they don't, you know, you can see all
there's lots of lights in the auditorium,
you know, like they’ll light up the back or there'll be,
you know, drink this beer or something over there.
We try to make it dark, you know,
so it becomes a sea of phone cameras.
But yeah,
there are a lot of things that can dampen it,
when you have massively lit exits.
And you can see the whole isle,
you know, if anybody is going to the loo,
you can see them and we don't like that.”
Having packed out the most famous halls and arenas
around the world throughout the 1970’s,
when it came to the 1980’s
and always hungry to blaze a trail to new horizons,
Queen made the unprecedented leap into Stadiums.
“Yeah, it was a big jump, really.
In retrospect, it was a big jump, but we didn't really take it on.
We didn't get scared of it at the time.
It was just like, ‘Oh yeah, we'll take this on. It's the next step’.
But playing to stadiums instead of arenas
happened out of England, happened in South America.
And we went down there with jumbo jets
full of gear to play these football stadiums,
not knowing if we would sell them out,
‘how will this happen?’”
We've been assured by the promoters
and Gerry Stickles went down there,
our wonderful tour manager mapped it all out.
Jim Beech went down there, our illustrious manager,
and they went, ‘Yes, you're going to fill all these football stadiums
because you are that big down there’, even though we'd never been.
And suddenly we're playing outdoors
to instead of 18,000 people in an arena, 15,000,
We're playing to 100,000 or even more,
150 in the case of some of those places
in Argentina and Brazil.”
And you'd think it would throw us,
but actually it was such a great challenge
and the audiences were so full of energy
that it felt kind of natural.
There's a lovely little vignette of Freddie being interviewed.
You've seen it a million times where they say…”
“Fred, how do you feel playing and singing before 200,000 people?”
“I haven’t done it yet.”
“That was the absolute truth.
We didn't know, but we just assumed we could.
We had a great crew again,
wonderful people who conquered the technical problems
there were to fill a football stadium with sound.
But it was all new.”
“I think our music was…
we wanted it to be big
and so I think we could project it
and make it work in big places.
I mean, other people have been good at it as well.
But I think it was particularly suited to us
and the sort of anthemic side and,
you know, gigantic side was good for a big,
big auditorium.
Some places are wonderful.
I mean places like the old Wembley Stadium,
it was difficult because it was so long and massive,
but it was… at least you could make yourselves heard,
and with the advent of screens,
it was doable.”