Sir Brian May has revealed that Queen were told by Bob Geldof to “just play the hits” before their legendary Live Aid performance in 1985.
Queen’s six-song performance, which saw lead singer Freddie Mercury make the 72,000-strong crowd clap and chant in unison, is often referred to as one of the greatest rock gigs of all time.
The concert was watched on TV by an estimated 1.5 billion people in 150 countries. It raised more than $140m (£114m) for famine relief, and raised awareness over Ethiopia’s devastating food shortages.
Speaking to The Radio Times, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor reflected on the performance 40 years later, with Taylor saying: “During ‘Radio Ga Ga’, it did seem that the whole stadium was in unison. But then I looked up during ‘We Are the Champions’, and the crowd looked like a whole field of wheat swaying.”
It was only Taylor who was enthusiastic about playing the concert initially, while other band members – May, Mercury and bassist John Deacon – were unconvinced.
“We weren’t touring or playing, and it seemed like a crazy idea, this talk of having 50 bands on the same bill,” May said. “We thought it was going to be a disaster. Freddie, in particular, said, ‘I haven’t got the right feeling for this.’ He wasn’t the leader of the band, but if he dug his heels in there was no dragging him, so we parked it.”
May recalled the moment Mercury changed his mind, saying: “I said to Freddie: ‘If we wake up on the day after this Live Aid show and we haven’t been there, we’re going to be pretty sad.’ He said: ‘Oh, f*** it, we’ll do it.’”
“It was one of the few moments in anyone’s life that you know you’re doing something for all the right reasons.”
Before their performance, May said the band were told by festival’s organiser, Bob Geldof: “Don’t get clever – just play the hits. You have 17 minutes.”
The set saw them open with “Bohemian Rhapsody”, followed by “Radio Gaga”, “Ay-Oh”, and “Hammer To Fall.” They ended the set on “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions”.
Taylor recalled that the hardest decision for such a short set was picking the songs.
For him, it was “obvious to open with the verse of Bohemian Rhapsody; it was so immediately recognisable. Then to finish with ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are the Champions’ was a no-brainer.”
Though the band was given a strict 17 minutes for their performance, it ended up lasting 21 minutes, due to Mercury’s call-and-response segment during “Radio Ga Ga”.
“We thought that might be on the cards,” May said of Mercury’s big moment. “We just didn’t know whether he was going to feel right about it. But he was so bold.”
Queen played on a lineup alongside U2, David Bowie and Paul McCartney at London’s Wembley Stadium, with Madonna, Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan performing simultaneously at the John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia.
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