Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert

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The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for Aids Awareness was an open-air benefit concert that took place on Easter Monday , April 20, 1992, at London's Wembley Stadium and was broadcast live on both radio and television. The remaining members of the rock band Queen organized the concert in honor of their singer Freddie Mercury , who died of AIDS on November 24, 1991 , with the aim of raising awareness about AIDS. The proceeds were used to set up the Mercury Phoenix Trust , a non-profit organization to fight AIDS.

The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert is also the title of Queen's VHS or DVD release of this concert (1993/2002).

prehistory

In February 1992 Roger Taylor and Brian May announced an open air concert to pay tribute to the life of Freddie Mercury. Tickets could already be bought the next day and all 72,000 tickets were sold out after six hours, although no one knew who would be performing alongside the remaining three members of Queen .

Appearances

The following artists performed:

1st chapter

Part 2 - the performance of the remaining Queen musicians Brian May , Roger Taylor and John Deacon together with guests

Guest musicians played and sang Tony Iommi (guitar), Spike Edney , Mike Moran (keyboards), Josh Macrae (percussion), Maggie Ryder, Miriam Stockley , Chris Thompson (backing vocals) and The London Community Gospel Choir .

The song Until the End of the World by U2 was by their appearance in California sent via satellite. The announcement for this recording was made by Cindy Crawford . Another recording via satellite came from Johannesburg and shows the group Mango Groove .

David Bowie sank to his knees as part of his performance and prayed the Our Father.

Speeches

In addition to being dedicated to Queen's lead singer, the festival was designed to encourage people to be more vigilant about AIDS. With this in mind, Elizabeth Taylor and George Michael gave short talks. Michael spoke the following words before his interpretation of Somebody to Love :

“I think a lot of people, not necessarily people who have anything against gay people, are probably taking some small comfort in the fact that although Freddie died of AIDS he was publicly bisexual. It's a very, very dangerous comfort. The conservative estimate for the year 2000 is that 40 million people on this planet will be infected by HIV, and if you think that those are all going to be gay people or drug addicts, then you are pretty well lining up to be one of those numbers. So please, for God's sake and for Freddie's sake, and for your own sakes, please be careful. "

“I think a lot of people, not necessarily those who are against gays, may find some comfort in the fact that Freddie, even though he died of AIDS, was publicly bisexual. It's a very, very dangerous consolation. A conservative estimate for 2000 is that 40 million people on this planet will be infected with HIV. And if you think these are all going to be gays or drug addicts, then you pretty much stand in line to be part of this statistic. So please, for God's sake and for Freddie's sake and for your own good, please be careful "

Recovery

Both parts of the concert were released on video in 1993. A DVD with the Queen performance was released in 2002 under the title The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert and hit number 1 on the UK sales charts. Innuendo - which was performed live by Queen for the only time at that time - is not included on either of the two releases, as Robert Plant, who was not in optimal vocals at the concert, refused to agree. The entire first part of the concert is missing on the DVD.

The live version of Somebody to Love was also released in 1993 as a single or on the EP entitled Five Live , jointly released by Queen and George Michael (with Lisa Stansfield) , which, in addition to the song Killer and some Michael songs, also has the tribute version of These Are the Days of Our Lives . In the UK, Five Live reached # 1 on the singles chart and went gold. Somebody to Love is also featured on Queen's compilation album Greatest Hits III (1999).

Metallica released their performance as a mini CD in 1992 ( Live at Wembley Stadium ), the proceeds from this went to the Phoenix Trust. That same year Guns N 'Roses' live version of Knockin' On Heaven's Door was also included on their reissued single of the same name; The Mercury Tribute recording of the song is still played on television to this day.

In the mid-1990s, a bootleg box called The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for Aids Awareness was released with three CDs containing all the songs by all musicians.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quoted from the booklet of the CD George Michael and Queen with Lisa Stansfield: Five Live , Parlophone, 1993.
  2. ↑ everyhit.com - UK Top 40 Hit Database ;
  3. ↑ Steve Hawtin: Song artist 36 - Queen. In: tsort.info. Retrieved August 25, 2014 .