When Queen (no, not Elizabeth!) ruled the world

Freddie Mercury's doctor advised him not to perform that day. Mercury had a sore throat and he would likely do damage to his vocal cords. 

Instead, on Saturday, July 13, 1985, Freddie Mercury defied the doctor's orders, strutted on stage with his band, Queen, and delivered the performance of a lifetime.

It's since been said that for those 20 minutes, a different Queen ruled England.

***

I did not watch the Live Aid concert in July 1985.  I remember passing by the TV room in my college dorm and seeing that it was on TV, but all I knew about it was that it was a benefit concert for famine relief and that Phil Collins was going to perform in London and then hop the Concorde so he could also play the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia.

So when the movie Bohemian Rhapsody came out, which focused on Queen's performance at London's Live Aid concert, and also purported to tell Freddie Mercury's life story, I thought, "What's the big deal?" I have not seen Bohemian Rhapsody, but I have read 1) the movie is rife with inaccuracies about Mercury's life, and 2) Rami Malek delivered a fantastic performance worthy of the Oscar he won. 

Then I stumbled across this reaction video from the YouTube channel Jamel AKA Jamal. Reaction videos are videos where a person, or more than one person, listens and reacts to a piece of music they've never heard before. Most reaction videos are from millennials listening to '60's and '70's music for the first time. (I love Jamal. Here's his channel.) 

He did a reaction video of Queen's Live Aid concert .  . . and I watched . . . and I was fascinated. 

I got even more fascinated when watching this video about why Queen were so good that day.

What I took away from both videos were:

• They were a tight, professional band that had performed together for years.
• Since they'd performed together for years, they knew each other's ins and out. They'd know what to do if Brian May hit a wrong note on his guitar or if Freddie Mercury forgot a lyric.
• They'd rehearsed knowing that they'd only have 20 minutes to perform, and that there'd be a tight turnaround time. So when it was their time to go, they had to be ready to go. 

By the mid-1980's, Queen supposedly had seen their heyday. They'd ruled the charts in the '70's with "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Another One Bites the Dust," and who hasn't done a stomp-stomp-clap to "We Will Rock You"? But in 1985? They were still touring and still recording, but the shine from the '70's was gone.

And then Bob Geldof issued the invitation:  Will you perform at Live Aid? 

They said yes.

Unlike what the movie Bohemian Rhapsody says, Freddie Mercury may or may not have been ill with HIV/AIDS on the day of Live Aid. His diagnosis was not announced until the day before his death. 

Maybe the sore throat he had was because of HIV. Maybe it was just a regular sore throat.

But when the doctor said, "Don't sing," Freddie said, "No way," (or maybe he told the doctor something similar in more colorful language), and went on stage at 6:41 p.m. London time.

When he hit the first notes of "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the piano and sang the first, "Mama . . ." he had the crowd immediately in the palm of his hand. The crowd became a sea of humanity, waving their arms and singing along with the familiar lyrics. 

From there, Mercury and the band launched into "Radio Ga Ga," "Hammer to Fall," "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions."  

Between "Radio Ga Ga" and "Hammer to Fall", Mercury had some fun with the crowd, leading them in a singalong of "Ay-oh!" Back and forth Mercury went with his audience, and his final note has since become known as "The Note Heard Round The World"

For those 20 minutes, although guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, and bassist John Deacon provided the music -- including blistering solos by Brian May -- Freddie Mercury, his body drenched in sweat, held the stage and held the audience. 

By the end, even if you had wanted to, if you had been in that 72,000 Wembley Stadium crowd, you could not have resisted doing a stomp-stomp-clap, singing back at the stage, "We will, we will rock you!" and joining in with the chorus of "We Are the Champions". 

The camera caught a mesmerized audience swaying back and forth under an hypnotic spell. 

Their 22-minute reign ended around 7 p.m. London time, with Mercury's final "We are the champions . . . of the worrrrlllllddd!" 

Champions of the world, indeed!

And as if weren't that enough, he and Brian May came back with an encore, not a hard-rock, high-energy set like they'd just performed, but a ballad asking "Is This the World We Created?" which brought the audience back to the reason for the whole Live Aid concert in the first place: the hungry mouths that needed to be fed. 

When Freddie Mercury died on November 24, 1991, the world lost a consummate showman and talented musician. 

I'm just sorry it took me 37 years to figure it out.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.