At the Brit Awards in February 1992, Queen guitarist Brian May announced that there would be a memorial concert for the late Freddie Mercury on April 20th. “We hope,” May told the audience, “to see many of you there.” No question: After three hours, all 72,000 tickets for the gig at London’s Wembley Stadium were sold.
To date, A Concert for Life: The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert is the largest concert ever given for a dead musician. With some moving speeches: never before and never again should the disease AIDS be discussed in front of such a large live audience.
Could it still happen today that an acting great like Elizabeth Taylor calls out to tens of thousands in Wembley and millions in front of the television: “Please use condoms”?
There were also some performances that were bad (and you don’t want to remember them)
This concert made it clear what influence the Queen singer Mercury, who died in November 1991, should have after his death, and that on already established stars, even superstars. Several moments of the event are still remembered today. And while some of the artists became even better known for their performance, others made a little embarrassment of themselves – which is still being held against them to this day. For example Bowie. But more on that later.
The concert consisted of two sections. Part one consisted of 3 song sets by rock bands presented to the audience heat up should; In return they were allowed to play their own songs, even Spinal Tap had been asked to do so. The second part consisted of a concert in which companions or admirers performed mostly Queen songs together with the remaining Queen members Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon.
There were some performances that night that were bad. And performances that you hardly remember or hardly want to remember (because today, more than 20 years later, the musicians no longer play a role or their connection to Queen is incomprehensible).
What actually happened to extremes? Apparently they were Queen fans, traded higher in the early 90’s so I guess their performance was ok. But did Def Leppard really have to be? And why was Lisa Stansfield given such a prominent performance time almost towards the end of the concert? “With a wink” she sang “I Want To Break Free” and walked across the stage with the vacuum cleaner in her hand. What came across as somewhat daring with the transvestite disguised as a housewife Mercury in the music video from 1984 (but after that the band’s career in the USA was over) seemed silly with this real woman.
Her duet with George Michael that night, “These Are The Days Of Our Lives”, developed into a quite successful live single. In general, George Michael, who conjured up a real estate agent’s blazer from his wardrobe for the evening, benefited greatly from this event. After the concert he released his “Five Live EP”, including the Queen cover “Somebody To Love”. She kept the singer, who was only supposed to record his own songs sporadically in the nineties, in conversation for years.
Liza Minelli nailed the musical-esque We Are The Champions
Sure, the duets. Besides George & Lisa and David Bowie & Annie Lennox (“Under Pressure”) there was also Axl & Elton, for example. After the release of their double album Use Your Illusion I & II in 1991, Axl Rose’ band Guns N’ Roses was the biggest band in the world next to U2. They were given the full program for the Mercury tribute concert: mini-set at the beginning, finale with “We Will Rock You”, and first of all: Axl’s lightning performance, introduced with pyro effects, during the heavier part of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, his first Verse Elton John took over.
The duet between the two was probably also politically motivated. Rose has been accused of being homophobic for years. When they appeared together, the two embraced, albeit a little awkwardly; Rose was out of breath by the end of the song, really exhausted. For fans and critics, “Bohemian Rhapsody” was rightly the highlight of the evening.
There were musicians, so you had to ask yourself: Why were they there and what to do with them. After all, Zucchero was in good hands with the unloved “Las Palabras De Amor”, Paul Young was quickly shipped to “Radio Ga Ga”, Liza Minelli knew the musical-like “We Are The Champions” from the eff-eff. Problem solved. And Bob Geldof, who probably has a season ticket for London charity festivals, was allowed to perform one of his many unknown songs as an opening act.
From the B-League of musicians, however, Seal, now only known as the ex-Klum husband, made the best and also his best-known performance. Celebrated as a star-to-be at the time thanks to his single “Crazy”, he sang “Who Wants To Live Forever” from the 1986 Queen album “A Kind Of Magic”. A good, brave choice. Are the Queen songs of the eighties wrongly considered weak by fans? But Seal wasn’t supposed to be as good as he was that night.
Guns N’ Roses just came and went
Hard rock musicians were among the winners of the evening. Robert Plant royally mixed “Innuendo” with his own “Kashmir”, Roger Daltrey and Tony Iommi also related their songs to “I Want It All” (Eighties Queen!). The first performance of the day belonged to Metallica. At festivals, openers usually play in front of empty seats, but here the stadium was already full. So the Metallica performance had to be instantaneous.
And James Hetfield and colleagues were on the safe side from the start. They seemed to understand that afternoon that with their “Black Album” they would rise to become the first metal stadium band ever. All Metallica had to do was fire “Enter Sandman” and “Sad But True.” The audience went along. So the territory was marked; The performance of the last band before the main set, before the stage was cleared for Queen, didn’t change that: Guns N’ Roses just came and went.
Even then, Axl Rose was considered highly unreliable and unstable, but here he and his group managed to present two pieces with great precision. The rendition of her Dylan cover, “Knocking On Heaven’s Door,” is now the best-known single sequence of the filmed evening, and later became the official music video.
Bowie…Bowie! David Bowie was a close friend of Mercury’s, he was almost the last to appear here and performed three songs. With a lot of self-confidence, after all, two of them (“All The Young Dudes”, which united him live with Mick Ronson, and “Heroes”) had nothing to do with Queen. None of the other artists who played with Queen on the main set afforded this self-reference.
Bowie: delivered three songs, then something unforeseen happened. Something the singer later described as a spontaneous idea. In any case, both a) Queen fans and b) Bowie fans, as well as c) the international press took offense to this idea. However, this idea was not quite as bad as “Q” magazine, which regularly records this scene in its best-of lists of the “most embarrassing music moments”, described it: Bowie spontaneously sank to his knees, asked for silence and said the Lord’s Prayer in memory of Freddie Mercury.
It wasn’t embarrassing, nor was it pretentious. Perhaps Bowie overwhelmed his audience, which had not been in a reverent mood until then; according to Brian May’s wish, but above all to celebrate the life of the Queen singer instead of mourning.
However, peace was made today with Bowie’s Lord’s Prayer. The prayer was later noted on the concert’s official tracklist.
setlist
Without Queen:
Metallica – “Enter Sandman”, “Sad But True”, “Nothing Else Matters”
Extreme – Queen Medley, “Love of My Life” (Gary Cherone & Nuno Bettencourt), “More Than Words” (Gary Cherone & Nuno Bettencourt)
Def Leppard – “Animal”, “Let’s Get Rocked”, “Now I’m Here” (with Brian May)
Bob Geldof – “Too Late God”
Spinal Tap – “The Majesty of Rock”
U2 – “Until the End of the World” (via satellite from Sacramento)
Guns N’ Roses – “Paradise City”, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”
Mango Groove – “Special Star” (via satellite from Johannesburg)
Elizabeth Taylor – AIDS Prevention Speech
with queen
Queen + Joe Elliott/Slash – “Tie Your Mother Down”
Queen + Roger Daltrey/Tony Iommi – “Heaven and Hell” (intro), “Pinball Wizard” (intro), “I Want It All”
Queen + Zucchero – “Las Palabras de Amor”
Queen + Gary Cherone/Tony Iommi – “Hammer to Fall”
Queen + James Hetfield/Tony Iommi – “Stone Cold Crazy”
Queen + Robert Plant – “Innuendo (with “Kashmir”), “Thank You” (intro), “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”
Brian May with Spike Edney – “Too Much Love Will Kill You”
Queen + Paul Young – “Radio Ga Ga”
Queen + Seal – “Who Wants to Live Forever”
Queen + Lisa Stansfield – “I Want to Break Free”
Queen + David Bowie/Annie Lennox – “Under Pressure”
Queen + Ian Hunter/David Bowie/Mick Ronson/Joe Elliot/Phil Collen – “All The Young Dudes”
Queen + David Bowie/Mick Ronson – “Heroes”
David Bowie – “The Lord’s Prayer”
Queen + George Michael – “’39”
Queen + George Michael/Lisa Stansfield – “These Are the Days of Our Lives”
Queen + George Michael – “Somebody to Love”
Queen + Elton John/Axl Rose – “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Queen + Elton John/Tony Iommi – “The Show Must Go On”
Queen + Axl Rose – “We Will Rock You”
Queen + Liza Minnelli/Cast – “We Are the Champions”
Queen – “God Save the Queen” (taped outro)
More highlights
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