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The phenomenal Queen concert at Wembley Stadium in July 1986 will live forever in the annals of rock music and this double DVD is a sublime recording of that fantastic event — an absolute must, not only for Freddie Mercury-Queen fans but for lovers of good rock music, extremely talented musicians and great stage presentations.
Recorded over two nights, with rain belting down on the first night, it still drew about 70 000 fans on each night and what a ball they had. While some critics hinted that Mercury was not at his best and even suggested that the illness which killed him not too long afterwards was already beginning to affect his performances I saw no hint of this. To me he was as vibrant, alive and energetic as always and in spite of what some others say I still reckon this to be one of his best, if not the all time best concerts.
The setting itself is amazing with a huge, but really huge, stage which didn't seem to phase the band at all and although not a big group they seemed to dominate the vast space, particularly Mercury himself who bounced around with the vibrancy of a squash ball at full tilt.
On these two discs Queen belts out 28 of their of their all-time greats, including personal favourites such as Another One Bites the Dust, the old Elvis Presley theme song Baby I Don't Care, We Will Rock You, Tutti Frutti, Radio Ga Ga and Crazy Little Thing Called Love. There are also a number of special features such as interviews, stage preparations and rehearsal sessions which are well worth watching.
By 1986, Queen was really at their absolute peak. And they were phenomenally good, let's face it. Recent figures show the British band, formed in 1971, released 18 number one albums, 18 number one singles, 10 number one DVDs and between 150 and 300 million albums (figures that are so huge that nobody is quite sure of the exact number).
Queen was inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame at the beginning of this century and they will live on in the memory of their fans until they die. This double CD collection is a fitting tribute to Freddie Mercury and the band and a show which I, for one, will watch over and over in years to come because it is the closest most of us will ever get to actually having been there.
