Queen at Live Aid: A Rock Star’s Royalty Takeover

The old Wembley Stadium was the setting, on July 13, 1985, for one of the greatest live concerts ever staged. The Live Aid Concert of 1985 had bands and artists like Sting, U2, Dire Straits, The Who, David Bowie, Elvis Costello, Elton John, and George Michael. Artists and bands such as Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Madonna and Tom Petty were at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia for the American counterpart of Live Aid. But of all the amazing artists performing on that July day, there was no doubt that Queen’s Live Aid performance stole the whole show with a magnificent, 21-minute tour-de-force set.

Live Aid performance by Queen with facts bout the day

The above video has some facts about Queen at Live Aid – If you cannot see the video visit the YouTube version at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KmXGfXGgS0

The hit Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody starts and ends with footage recreating Queen’s Live Aid concert. It is one of Queen’s performances that remains the high point of the band’s live performance history. Their participation was initially in doubt, however, and as recently as June 2019, guitarist Brian May admitted: “We definitely hesitated about doing Live Aid.”. We are all glad that they did !

After finally accepting Bob Geldof and Midge Ure’s invitation to play the Live Aid benefit concert for Ethiopian famine relief, Queen were the usual Queen perfectionists and rehearsed their set thoroughly at the Shaw Theatre, near King’s Cross train station in London, in order to get song timings and solos down to perfection for what would be a truncated performance of only 20 minutes. There would not be a sound check, there would be no Queen Lighting Rig and this was not a Queen audience, so they had to be polished!

In the end, Queen went on at 6:41pm and Stole the Show. Hit after Hit and then the note which was heard around the world – Freddie’s Crowd Participation Ay-Oh!