Queen: Rock Montréal & Live Aid

by Ethan Nahté

Queen rock Canada, then the World in this historical collection!

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In true royal fashion, Queen delivers to their subjects in the best way possible. The surviving members finally obtained the rights to what was originally entitled We Will Rock You, the band has cleaned up and re-mastered the film footage. Shot in full cinema 35mm on the final two nights (November 24 & 25, 1981) of their 2 year tour, this is Queen: Rock Montréal.

A flash of lights and the roar of thunder and lightning shake the 18,000 seat arena as the band hit the stage for the fast version of “We Will Rock You,” which, if you’ve never heard it, is quite an entertaining version of the song that will get you at of your seat and your fist in the air. It’s immediately followed by another rocker that probably isn’t as well-known by casual fans of Queen’s music, “Let Me Entertain You.”

This is a DVD that you will need to watch a couple of times - once for the concert itself cranked up in either PCM Stereo or DTS Digital Surround; once with the commentary on, provided by guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor. Even if you are someone who doesn’t typically listen to commentary, this disc will give you a lot of insight to the show. It turns out that the band weren’t happy with the director or the film crew on this shoot. Although songs are played faster live, Queen is playing some songs at an even faster pace, explains the musicians, because of this anger at the cameras being in their way and the way the whole setup was being handled. They discuss how it shows in their playing and in Freddie Mercury’s singing and playing performance. Not that the band performs badly, but certain things that they say and do, or don’t do, during the show may not be obvious until the commentary is turned on and certain things are pointed out.

Beyond that, May & Taylor also discuss quite a bit about their lighting rig, which was the first moving rig to tour and quite a spectacle back in ‘81. They talk about how the lights were an integral part of the show to help set the tone for certain songs as they interacted with them.

More commentary revolves around the band, when certain songs were written and some technical information such as the homemade effects pedal that May had built so he could achieve certain sounds unlike any other guitarist. As a matter of fact, this would be the last concert that they performed “in the raw” before they brought in the use of a keyboardist/synth player as a fifth member offstage. Before that, all piano was mainly Mercury and occasionally May and any other weird sounds were masterfully achieved by May’s guitar.

But back to the show! The band performs over 22 songs in this hour-and-a-half concert, plus a drum solo and guitar solo. “Play The Game,” “Somebody To Love,” Dragon Attack,” “I’m In Love With My Car,” the first live performance of “Under Pressure,” “Keep Yourself Alive” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Another One Bites The Dust,” “We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions” and my all-time favorite Queen rocker, “Sheer Heart Attack,” are just some of the great songs that fill this set.

Rock Montréal is a concert I wish I had been there to see.  And this wasn’t even the entire concert. It seems that the original director opted to leave a couple of songs out, probably due to length, and cut “Flash,” which would’ve been a hot song out at that moment for the Flash Gordon movie soundtrack, and “The Hero.” The songs appear on the double CD or triple LP sets, but the film footage was thrown away and no longer exists, so they are absent from the DVD.

This concert would get a 5.0/5.0 from me and can be bought on it’s own. But if that weren’t enough, you can also get the DVD, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray version of this concert along with Live Aid. Their performance on the Bob Geldof event is a classic. The band performed only 20 minutes, like each band of the charity event did. It starts out with “Bohemian Rhapsody” and moves into a couple of songs not on the Rock Montréal disc, “Radio Gaga” and “Hammer To Fall.” Then they do another performance of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions.” But as something special, May and Mercury got to come back out onstage a couple of hours after their set to do the acoustic tune “Is This The World We Created,” which was perfect for the event, but not written for Live Aid as the band explains in the interviews done during their rehearsals, in which we get to see most of the songs being worked on. Everyone but bassist John Deacon talks during the interview, although he is present, but quiet, as usual. The 11 minutes of rehearsal footage has never been seen by the public.

Deacon, May & Taylor are also shown in a 1982 interview for America on the old TV show PM Magazine. The show was similar to Entertainment Tonight and did a nice feature on the band with concert footage, interviews and snippets of their videos.

The Rock Montréal disc is in widescreen and the Live Aid disc is in full screen. Both shows along with the interviews total nearly 140 minutes. Do yourself the favor and look for the double disc version of this Queen performance. You won’t regret it.