Queen at Live Aid: Breaking Down The Posture, Moves, and Stage Charisma of The Great Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury’s piano beers had a front-row seat to what became the best live performance ever.

Yeah, I know the Queen Live Aid show has been covered more than a discarded watermelon rind dropped into a dirt mount full of ants on cocaine. I know – but I dare you to complain about it. Can you name a six-song set with better lighting, song sequence, execution, Freddie Mercuryness, or dare I say…atmosphere?

I don’t care if it has 46 million views on Youtube – I treat Freddie Mercury at Live Aid like an obscure gemstone found deep in the Amazon every time I watch. I even put on a little Percival Fawcett 1920s explorer cap and British knee-high beige socks from the 1880s and thrash about the room to “Radio Ga Ga” with an antique machete and…no, no, I don’t do any of that.

But it is must-see musical theatre for all (see how I spelled ‘theatre’ the fancy way). I’ll post the video up top and thanks to a glorious user on Soundcloud, we’ll do a song-by-song breakdown of the mythical performance. Let’s take a look at the posture, moves, and stage elements that made the Queen’s Live Aid performance so historic.

Yep, we’re gettin’ technical!

Sound good?

Headphones in. Volume UP. Enjoy.

Song One – Bohemian Rhapsody

I actually feel both elated and spiteful of all the children who did not learn about Queen until the biopic, “Bohemian Rhapsody” came out. Elated because, discovering great music you haven’t heard is akin to riding a stampeding elephant for the first time – nothing beats it. Spiteful because, Freddie operated from titan heights, and the movie couldn’t reach up to his knees.

Rami Malek — he tried – I get it. But Freddie Mercury was a sassy animal, a sarcastic, cigarette-ash-tapping, droll, flamboyant, wiry cord of sexual electricity and brooding magnetism at once. He overcame pronounced buckteeth to be possibly the greatest breather of vocalist dragon fire of all time. Live Aid was peak Freddie charisma.

Freddie Mercury at Live Aid in the “hard power stance”, characterized by dominant, unyielding stage authority.

Song Two – Radio Ga Ga

Look at that power stance. This is a textbook, educational video for 13-year-olds aspiring to be Rock Frontmen. Notice the posture, the facial expression, the confident determination.

Yes, that’s right, get your notebook out.

Watch the power strut with the mic – write down “using a prop”. You’ll need to practice at least 37 minutes a day by breaking your mom’s broom in half, down to Freddie microphone size. Then, what does he do? He waves at the crowd and holds tens of thousands in the palm of his hand. Should you jet off on a cross-country bus to a leather basement club in Greenwich Village to fully put yourself in Freddie’s shoes? Couldn’t hurt.

The lighting is at its best right here. Dusk is just settling over the stage. The bulbs are changing over to a soft glow, and the smooth delivery of “Radio Ga Ga” encapsulates the next three minutes in an amber bubble of memory sap, to be mined for a musical Jurassic Park 15 million years from now.

Interlude – Ay-oh!

Honestly, could you imagine if you went out in the wild and there was an animal that orchestrated that glorious array of notes like a barnyard noise?

You walk out to feed Clementine Donkey and instead of “hee-haw”, you just hear “Ay-oh” for 50 seconds. Go to feed the chickens – instead of clucks – it’s “Ay-oh”. Give the cows some hay food, their response is “Ay-oh”. You walk away from the barn and just hear the goat: “Hey hey hey hey, how ‘bout a song!”

This is the world I dream of for all of us.

Song Three – Hammer To Fall

Again, see the masterful air guitar play of Freddie Mercury, as he nails every fake chord. See the real guitar play of Brian May, fluid and steady. See the beautiful camera work of the men dressed in all white, like a group of generic psych ward attendants who moonlight as Live Aid filmmakers in nurse costumes.

Song Four – Crazy Little Thing Called Love

The best line of this song is the first:

“This next song is dedicated to only beautiful people here tonight…that means all of you.”

Freddie Mercury at Live Aid in the classic “soft power stance”, relaxed yet in control.

Freddie goes for what we Frontmen scholars call the “soft power stance” in this one. Left leg direct, right leg keeps the beat. Microphone positioned just off-center for a relaxed yet authority-driven performance posture.

Song Five – We Will Rock You

Another soft layer of dusk has gently laid itself upon the arena. Today, Queen would have let A24 or some other prestigious indie production studio walk in and film the show documentary-style, and they would then walk out with an Oscar for the newly created category of “Best Live Show Cinematography”.

Song Six – We Are The Champions

I want to know what Pepsi’s sales looked like after this performance, with all those quaint 1985 Pepsi cups littering Freddie Mercury’s piano.

At this point the crowd just looks like a wave in unison, 100,000 people in Queen hypnosis. Or maybe they’re just in normal tired festival mode – super dirty, one guy smells like farts and B.O., everyone’s exhausted from taking biker Speed during George Thorogood.

There you have it – 22 minutes end just as nightfall drops a curtain across their final bow.

“So long, goodbye!” yells Freddie Mercury.

The crowd screams and a six-song set that started at 6:44 in the evening is immortalized in memory by a singer who still holds us in the palm of his hand.  

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Artist Links:

Queen Insta (So weird that Queen has Instagram) 
Queen website

Songs by Queen to get you bothered:

Brighton Rock
Love of my Life
And of course, Queen in D2: The Mighty Ducks

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