DailyView: Day 296, Movie 419

Yesterday, I watched a concert movie with the King, Elvis Presley and I enjoyed the film quite a bit. So I decided that I would look into some of the other available concert films, but, fact was, I did not find a bunch that I wanted to see. However, there were a few that I found and the one I chose for tonight was featuring the band Queen.

Queen, which included, arguably, the greatest front man in music history, Freddie Mercury, as well as amazing guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bassist John Deacon, went on their final tour with Mercury behind the Iron Curtain and into Hungary.

Hungary, in 1986 when the tour took place, was still under a Communist dictatorship at the time, which was unbelievable that a British rock band was able to tour. They were Queen, after all.

To be fair, the non-music part of this documentary was severely lacking. However, these scenes, with Queen making their way around Budapest, were short and allowed a nice respite from the concert.

The music was the reason to watch this. Queen is utterly brilliant and the performances of these songs were fantastic. Freddie Mercury’s voice is unmatched and the skill with which he used it is completely impressive. What was just as awesome here, Freddie spent most of the concert running all over the stage. There were steps and pavilions and scaffolding and Freddie went everywhere. He had to be in amazing shape (even though he possibly was HIV + at the time).

Queen hit all of the songs that they performed at their famous Live Aid performance. There were a few of Queen’s hits that I would have liked to have heard. In fact, the first group of songs they played were songs that I did not recognize. It was wonderful hearing the songs that were like all new ones.

Queen was not just about Freddie Mercury though as the other band members were remarkably talented too. Brian May’s guitar work is breathtaking. Roger Taylor is something special to watch as he sings and pounds away on the drums. Taylor had his own impressive voice.

And watching thousands of audience members jumping up and down and clapping in synch showed how beloved this group was…even in Hungary.

There was not much more to this film than the music, but fortunately, the music is more than enough.