Welcome back to Queen The Greatest Live.
Previously we have revealed how Queen approached
creating their jaw-dropping set lists, and the attention to detail
needed to ensure the ultimate live experience for the fans.
Now with Brian and Roger,
we explore the process of taking songs that were crafted in the studio,
and adapting them for the stage.
“I think some songs are written
with the idea of how it might sound live
like Sheer Heart Attack for instance
for instance, that was always thought ohh
that would play, if we can play that fast, that will go well live.,
But most songs I think we write,
or have been written, as the song and the recording,
and then some of them translate very much into,
they want to be played live you know, they can be effective live.
“I think there's various processes.
Sometimes you're in the middle of writing a song
in the studio and you think,
Oh, how would that be live?
And that actually informs your recording process
because you fashion it towards being
a sort of live feeling, kind of track,
like something like I Want It All,
it's pretty much designed to be a live track.”
“In my head it always was.
And you start thinking in the studio when you're playing it,
‘how would it be if I was on stage actually doing this?
What would I be doing? What would people want to see?
What would I feel I wanted to communicate?
So you're almost, in your mind,
building a live situation which you play off.”
] “Other songs not. Something like
well, The Miracle, Freddie’s song The Miracle
I don't think was ever envisaged
to be a live song, and it never was.
It was purely a creation in the studio,
something quite delicate and
I'm not saying it's impossible.
I’m sure you could, but it wouldn't be directed towards,
towards the stage performance.
While the band knew instinctively
that some songs would never be right for the live shows,
there were others that they believed,
with a slightly different approach,
would result in a truly special moment with the fans.
Such as one particular track from A Night At The Opera.
“We had this piano song, which would’ve been
very difficult to do live.
It's got all these lovely, beautiful overdubs of harmonies and stuff.
It's got a guitar solo, everything. How would you do that live?
And I remember just sitting with Freddie and going,
‘Well, we could do acoustic and you could just sing it’”.
“And it happened quite quickly.
I mean, I just found ways of doing it which actually
not very close to the record,
but it compressed it all into a,
into something which we could perform quite easily
and we could invite the audience to sing with us, which they did.”
By the time Queen reached the 1980s,
and with a decade of hit songs already to already to choose from,
picking which ones to perform became harder.
But it also provided an opportunity
to get creative with how they revisited some of their old favourites.
“Well, yes. I mean, we do have a lot.
It's a big canon of songs,
and it did get a bit harder, what we leave out, what do we put in,
and so we just kept all our favourites.
I mean, we suddenly thought, be nice to hear that one again.
Like some of the older fans would think,
‘Oh blimey, that one. That's when I started listening to them’, you know.
Seven Seas of Rhye, Keep yourself Alive. Yeah.
You know, very, very early stuff.
We don't. We don't. We keep them pretty short. Normally. Yeah.”
As Brian and Roger have often mentioned,
the connection they had with their audiences
enabled the band and fans to share in the journey
as the songs evolved, often in ways they could never have imagined.
“Well, you kind of hope that they will evolve live.
I mean, We Will Rock You, certainly was written
with the absolutely clear intention
that it would be an audience participation song.
And it worked out, I'm happy to say. But it's different live.
And for a start, there's no drums on the original recorded version.
It's become a drum extravaganza, which is fine,
and the audience do sing it.
“The stamping and clapping thing has evolved into a completely
incomprehensible situation because some people will go bump bump punch,
some people go boom, boom, punch, and you know, who knows?
I don't even know anymore.
But it doesn't matter because the physicality is there
and they sing and obviously it's a staple.
It's always going to be with us, We Will Rock You, same with Champions.”
“So yeah, it's moments of discovery.
‘Oh, we can do this’
I love waking up in the middle of the night and thinking,
‘Oh, you know what? We could do this’,
you know? And you go in, you ‘can we try this’
and then you go ‘actually yeah that could work,
that can pretty much work’.”