Queen Conclude Yearlong The Greatest Video Series

03-11-2022

Photo by Jake Warkel for antiMusic

(Hollywood Records) Queen have shared the final video in their yearlong The Greatest Video series with the second part of our look at 10 years of Queen + Adam Lambert, culminating in an electrifying night in Sydney.

After almost a full year, Queen The Greatest reaches its series finale episode and for this ultimate week continues its look back at the spectacular live performances from - "A Decade of Queen + Adam Lambert."

Between 2012 and 2020, Queen and Adam Lambert toured extensively, clocking up an incredible 218 performances in over 40 countries, and in front of an estimated three and a half million people.

Each new touring production seemed to get bigger and better, thrilling the crowds with a mixture of recognizable hits alongside imaginative interpretations of some of the deeper cuts.

Adam Lambert: "We have a little bit of a little treat in the set that we're going to be doing this summer on tour. There is, what kind of is considered, a new song that many people might not have heard before in the context of Queen. Freddie Mercury worked on a song...

"He created a song with Giorgio Moroder for the film Metropolis. It's called "Love Kills," and we're going to do it for you in our own way."

But never far from everyone's minds, was the legacy of how it all started.

Adam Lambert: "I knew Queen songs before I knew who Queen were. I mean, they're just ever present and to get up there for me personally, and to get up to celebrate Freddie as well, is a real treat. You know, there's no replacing Freddie. It's not possible. So to be on stage and to talk to the audience about Freddie, and we show Freddie on the screen a couple of points in the show, we hear his voice, that's very important for this, this experience, for the audience."

Brian May: "There's one song that I sing together with Freddie, which is always a great moment. I can't see ever not wanting to do that really. And of course, the audience do it all. It's all about the audience, and sharing that moment."

Brian May: "The memories, and the fact that we're still here, and the legacy lives on, and I think Freddie would be so happy about that."

At the beginning of 2020, the band was in full flight with their Rhapsody Tour already playing to sold out crowds across And although the global pandemic was about to put plans to tour across Europe on hold, Queen and Adam Lambert, in response to a tragedy unfolding in Australia, managed to contribute to a show, with what is regarded as one of their absolute finest performance - replicating for the first time ever the band's iconic 1985 Live Aid set for the Fire Fight Australia fundraising concert, staged to help communities affected by Australia's devastating brushfires.

The 22-minute performance even included video footage from the 1985 show, honouring Freddie Mercury in a digital cameo with the re-enactment of one of his most iconic audience-participation moments.

Brian May: "It was incredible because, you know, it was a terrible thing to see the fires sweep through Australia and the amount of hardship, and people losing their homes, the amount of wild animals killed. Very tragic. And we happened to be in Sydney at a point where it was convenient to put on a concert to raise awareness, raise money for the cause, for the fire fighters. So we'd already done our show the night before, and we kind of donated our stage to open the stadium the next night.

"The feeling of adrenaline was insane. And strangely, we had already decided that we wanted to recreate the Live Aid set. Because there's a lot of similarities between the causes. And so we went on and just as, you know, the original Live Aid, it was a one off. We've never done that set before, and this was a one off to. And the audience were..."

Adam Lambert: "They were wild. Yeah."

Brian May: "So energized. That's the highlight of this whole thing that we're putting out, I think, that we end up in Sydney at that Fire Fight concert.
It was another one off."

Roger Taylor: "The feeling of electricity in the stadium in Sydney before we went on, was incredible. So I think it connected."

Later that year, that particular set also appeared on the Queen + Adam Lambert Live Around The World album - a compilation of some of the stand out live performances from the Queen + Adam Lambert years, that was released as a thank you to the fans. Queen's first album without Freddie and John Deacon, it raced to number one in the charts in October 2020, ensuring Queen entered their sixth decade with another number one album and providing Adam with his first UK No.1 album.

Thank you for watching Queen The Greatest and joining this journey through the extraordinary Queen story - and with the band's Rhapsody Tour about to resume in the coming months, it looks like that story will continue for many more years to come... Watch the epsidoe below: