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We Will Rock You (video)

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Directed by
  
Saul Swimmer

Music by
  
Queen

We Will Rock You (video)

Produced by
  
Saul Swimmer, Jim Beach

Starring
  
Freddie Mercury Brian May Roger Taylor John Deacon

We Will Rock You is a concert film by English band Queen. It was filmed in Montreal, Quebec, Canada at the Montreal Forum on 24 and 25 November 1981, ten years to the day before lead singer Freddie Mercury's death from AIDS.

Contents

A new official release of the concert (retitled Queen Rock Montreal) digitally restored and remastered by Queen was released on 29 October 2007 on DVD (by Eaglevision) double CD (by Hollywood Records for the US and Canada and by Parlophone Records for Europe and EMI for the rest of the world) and triple vinyl LP.[1]

A special double DVD Queen Rock Montreal & Live Aid included Queen's performance at Live Aid as well as never before seen interviews and rehearsal footage. HD-DVD and Blu-ray versions were released on 4 December 2007.

List of songs

  1. "We Will Rock You" (fast) (May)
  2. "Let Me Entertain You" (Mercury)
  3. "Play the Game" (Mercury)
  4. "Somebody to Love" (Mercury)
  5. "Killer Queen" (Mercury)
  6. "I'm in Love with My Car" (Taylor)
  7. "Get Down, Make Love" (Mercury)
  8. "Save Me" (May)
  9. "Now I'm Here" (May)
  10. "Dragon Attack" (May)
  11. "Now I'm Here" (reprise) (May)
  12. "Love of My Life" (Mercury)
  13. "Under Pressure" (Queen/Bowie)
  14. "Keep Yourself Alive" (with impromptu jam before the song) (May)
  15. Drum Solo/Tympani Solo (Queen/Taylor)
  16. Guitar Solo/Guitar and Drum Duel (May)
  17. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" (Mercury)
  18. "Jailhouse Rock" (Leiber, Stoller)
  19. "Bohemian Rhapsody" (Mercury)
  20. "Tie Your Mother Down" (May)
  21. "Another One Bites the Dust" (Deacon)
  22. "Sheer Heart Attack" (Taylor)
  23. "We Will Rock You" (May)
  24. "We Are the Champions" (Mercury)
  25. "God Save the Queen" (tape) (arr. May)

The tracks "Flash's Theme" and "The Hero" (both written by May) were also performed at these concerts but were deleted from the film. However, the tracks do appear on the CD and vinyl issues of Queen Rock Montreal. A commentary by Roger Taylor and Brian May is an optional feature of Queen Rock Montreal whereas a commentary by Saul Swimmer (the director/producer) was an optional feature of the DVD re-release of We Will Rock You.

Live Aid

  1. "Bohemian Rhapsody"
  2. "Radio Ga Ga"
  3. "Hammer To Fall"
  4. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"
  5. "We Will Rock You"
  6. "We Are The Champions"
  7. "Is This The World We Created"
  • all tracks recorded live at Wembley Stadium, 13 July 1985.

    • Commentaries

    Director Saul Swimmer recorded a commentary for the original laserdisc release of the concert. In it, he describes the process by which he and the band went about organising and recording the concerts which eventually became this video. He is complimentary of the band and spoke positively about the experience. Specifically, he talked about the lengths he went to convince the band to make the video at the end of their then-current tour. Swimmer said the deciding moment came when he took Freddie Mercury to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. and showed him the three-storey IMAX screen, and told him to imagine himself five stories tall. Having convinced Mercury, the rest of the band followed suit.

    When Queen eventually acquired the rights to the video, Brian May and Roger Taylor recorded a new commentary track, on which they discuss their feelings about the original process of making the concert video. May describes Swimmer's behaviour in trying to get the band to agree to the project in very negative terms. He says the director effectively hounded them and that when they relented, he was not easy to work with during the actual two nights of recording. Unlike Swimmer's earlier commentary track, which paints a generous picture of the relationship between himself and the band, May and Taylor's commentary track indicates very directly that this was not the case. In particular, May was irked by Swimmer's camera direction and raised this point every time he wasn't in shot during a guitar solo.

    Production

    Material from both nights was used in the final version. In a number of instances, the footage is a mixture of camera shots from one night and audio recordings from the other night. It was finally released in 2007 this time with permission of the band. The title was also changed. Queen Rock Montreal was chosen as the new official title.

    References

    We Will Rock You (video) Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA