Magic Tour (Queen)

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The Magic Tour
European tour by Queen
LocationEurope
Associated album A Kind of Magic
Start date7 June 1986 (1986-06-07)
End date9 August 1986 (1986-08-09)
Legs1
No. of shows26
Queen concert chronology

The Magic Tour was a European concert tour by the British rock band Queen in 1986. The tour was in support of their latest album, A Kind of Magic , and featured 26 shows across Western Europe. In addition, the band performed one show behind the Iron Curtain in Hungary.

Contents

The highlight of the tour was the two sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium on 11–12 July. Both concerts were professionally filmed. The second show was released as Queen at Wembley . The final show of the tour, held at Knebworth on 9 August in front of at least 120,000 fans, marked a significant moment in the band's history. It was also the last time lead singer Freddie Mercury performed live with Queen before his death five years later.

Background

Queen's tour in 1986 featured 26 shows and marked the band's first concert series since their performance at Live Aid in July 1985, which earned them high praise and boosted their popularity. [1] [2] The tour included support acts such as the Alarm, [3] Belouis Some, [4] Marillion, [5] INXS and Status Quo. [4]

Preparations for the tour started in May 1986, and the band rehearsed for four weeks, which was their longest preparation for a stage show. [3] Despite promoters' uncertainty about whether they would sell enough tickets for stadium and outdoor venues, the gigs were met with high demand. [6]

In addition to debuting new songs like "One Vision" and "Who Wants to Live Forever", the band decided to reintroduce some older tracks and an acoustic rock 'n' roll medley into their set. [7] The final part of the show repeated the six songs Queen had played at Live Aid. [8] The band also added a new song, "Friends Will Be Friends", as the final encore between "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions". [9] Freddie Mercury personally asked his friend Diana Moseley to design stage clothes for the band, including a large crown and gown which he wore at the end of the show. [7] The stage was 160 feet (49 m) [10] long and flanked by two 40-foot (12 m) runways. [7] Roger Taylor said the new stage show would make " Ben Hur look like the Muppets". [8]

Itinerary

The tour began on 7 June 1986 in Stockholm. [11] During the 21 June concert at the Maimarktgelände, Mannheim, Marillion frontman Fish sang "Tutti Frutti" with Mercury. Five days later at the Waldbühne, West Berlin, the group played an impromptu version of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song". A cover of Shirley Bassey's "Big Spender" was subsequently re-added to the set, having been regularly featured in the group's early days. [5]

The concert at Slane Castle on 5 July was marred by bad weather and crowd violence. [6] The group played St James' Park, Newcastle, on 9 July. All profits for the concert were donated to Save the Children Fund. [12] Support band INXS were delayed because of traffic. During the show, Mercury told the audience about rumours that Queen would disband, and flatly denied them. [13]

All 72,000 tickets for the 11 July show at Wembley Stadium sold out quickly, so a second date was added for the following night. The group played for over 150,000 people over the two nights. [6] The first was played during bad weather, but the second was clear and filmed by Tyne Tees and recorded by Capital Radio for a future television and radio broadcast. [14] [3] Giant inflatable models representing the cartoon version of the group on the A Kind of Magic cover were released; three were caught by the crowd, while one landed in Chelmsford approximately 35 miles away. [14] During the show, Mercury addressed the audience, again denying rumours that Queen were splitting up, adding "we're gonna stay together until we fucking well die". [15] After the second show, Mercury played an impromptu set at Kensington Roof Gardens with Fish, Samantha Fox and Gary Glitter. [16]

The concert at the Népstadion, Budapest, on 27 July was the first concert by a major rock group behind the Iron Curtain. As well as 80,000 tickets selling out, a further estimated 45,000 people listened to the group outside. Some fans had travelled from as far away as Poland to see the concert. The show was professionally filmed on 35 mm movie film by 17 of Hungary's best cameramen. The gear employed, including seventeen cameras and 25 miles of film, was all that was accessible in the country, and the Hungarian government approved the entire operation. During the show, the group performed an acoustic arrangement of the traditional Hungarian folk song "Tavaszi Szél Vizet Áraszt". Mercury wrote the lyrics on the palm of his hand. [4]

The Knebworth concert on 9 August 1986 was added to the end of the tour because earlier dates at Wembley had sold out. 120,000 fans attended, making it the group's biggest UK concert. [17] [11] The stage featured 5,000 amplifiers, 8.6 miles (13.8 km) of cable and a 20-by-30-foot (6.1 m × 9.1 m) video screen. [11] It was also the last live concert the classic line-up of Queen ever played. Henry Lytton Cobbold, 3rd Baron Cobbold, owner of Knebworth, later said he felt it was one of the best Queen gigs, but owing to an oversight, nobody remembered to tape video footage of the concert, although an audio recording survives along with handheld audience footage. A photograph of a swarm of helicopters branded under the 'magic' emblem was used for promotional purposes. [18]

The tour played to more than 400,000 fans, and earned the group £11 million. [19]

Aftermath

After the tour, Mercury told his bandmates that he did not want to do any more large-scale shows. [19] In spring 1987, he was diagnosed as having AIDS. [20] When the group reconvened to record The Miracle in 1989, the press were informed that Mercury wanted to "break the cycle of album, tour, album, tour" and consequently the album would not have any accompanying live performances. [21] He died on 24 November 1991. [22] Queen did not undertake another full tour until 19 years later, when the Queen + Paul Rodgers Tour began in March 2005. By then, John Deacon had retired from music, and did not take part. [23]

Releases

Several concerts from the tour have been released commercially. The album Live Magic , containing greatly edited highlights, was released in December 1986 and was a top 5 hit. [24] The second Wembley gig has been released several times. The full audio was released as a CD Live at Wembley '86 in 1992. [25] A video, Queen at Wembley was released in 1990, containing only part of the show, with edits. It was followed by the full concert on DVD in 2003. [26] The Budapest show has been released as Live in Budapest on VHS and Laserdisc (later re-released and retitled as Hungarian Rhapsody: Queen Live in Budapest in 2012). [27]

Tour dates

Lists of concerts, showing date, city, country, venue, opening act and number of available tickets [28]
DateCityCountryVenueOpening actAttendance
7 June 1986 Stockholm Sweden Råsunda Stadium Gary Moore
Treat		37,500 / 37,500 [29]
11 June 1986 Leiden Netherlands Groenoordhallen INXS 25,600 / 25,600
12 June 1986
14 June 1986 Paris France Hippodrome de Vincennes Belouis Some
Level 42
Marillion 		40,000 / 65,000
17 June 1986 Brussels Belgium Forest National INXS9,200 / 9,200
19 June 1986LeidenNetherlandsGroenoordhallenINXS
Craaft		12,800 / 12,800
21 June 1986 Mannheim West Germany Maimarktgelände Craaft
Gary Moore
Level 42
Marillion		85,700 / 115,000
26 June 1986 West Berlin Waldbühne Craaft
Marillion		22,600 / 22,600
28 June 1986 Munich Olympiahalle Craaft22,400 / 22,400
29 June 1986
1 July 1986 Zürich Switzerland Hallenstadion 22,800 / 22,800
2 July 1986
5 July 1986 [a] Slane Ireland Slane Castle Chris Rea
The Fountainhead
The Bangles 		90,000 / 120,000 [30]
9 July 1986 Newcastle England St James' Park Status Quo
Zeno		38,000 / 38,000
11 July 1986 London Wembley Stadium INXS
Status Quo
The Alarm 		144,000 / 144,000 [31]
12 July 1986
16 July 1986 Manchester Maine Road Belouis Some
Status Quo		35,000 / 35,000
19 July 1986 Cologne West Germany Müngersdorfer Stadion Craaft
Gary Moore
Level 42
Marillion		50,000 / 50,000
21 July 1986 Vienna Austria Wiener Stadthalle Craaft24,000 / 24,000
22 July 1986
27 July 1986 Budapest Hungary Népstadion Craaft
ZiZi Labor		80,000 / 80,000
30 July 1986 [b] Fréjus France Arènes de Fréjus Craaft15,000 / 15,000
1 August 1986 Barcelona Spain Mini Estadi 34,000 / 34,000
3 August 1986 Madrid Nuevo Estadio de Vallecas 45,000 / 45,000
5 August 1986 Marbella Estadio Municipal de Marbella 37,000 / 37,000
9 August 1986 [c] Stevenage England Knebworth Park Belouis Some
Big Country
Status Quo		120,000 / 120,000 [33] [34]

Notes

  1. ↑ The 5 July 1986 concert in Slane was part of Slane Festival.
  2. ↑ The 30 July 1986 concert in Fréjus was originally scheduled to take place at Stade de l'Ouest in Nice. [32]
  3. ↑ The 9 August 1986 concert in Stevenage was part of Knebworth Festival.

Personnel

Queen

Additional musicians

See also

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References

Citations

  1. ↑ Dean 1986, pp. 79, 91.
  2. ↑ Blake 2010, pp. 7, 318.
  3. 1 2 3 Dean 1986, p. 90.
  4. 1 2 3 Blake 2010, p. 325.
  5. 1 2 Blake 2010, p. 320.
  6. 1 2 3 Blake 2010, p. 321.
  7. 1 2 3 Blake 2010, p. 317.
  8. 1 2 Blake 2010, p. 318.
  9. ↑ Blake 2010, p. 319.
  10. ↑ "QueenOnline.com – Live Archive". www.queenonline.com. Retrieved 12 August 2022.
  11. 1 2 3 Dean 1986, p. 91.
  12. ↑ Dean 1986, p. 89.
  13. ↑ "Rock superstars Queen were at St James' Park, Newcastle, on this day 30 years ago". Newcastle Chronicle. 9 July 2016. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  14. 1 2 Blake 2010, p. 322.
  15. ↑ Smith, Richard, ed. (2016). Seduced and Abandoned : Essays on Gay Men and Popular Music. Vol. 8. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 238. ISBN   978-1-474-28697-8.
  16. ↑ Blake 2010, p. 323.
  17. ↑ Blake 2010, pp. 316, 325.
  18. ↑ "Queen rocked Knebworth 30 years ago today in Freddie Mercury's last show". Welwyn and Hatfield Times. 9 August 2016. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  19. 1 2 Blake 2010, p. 327.
  20. ↑ Blake 2010, p. 331.
  21. ↑ Blake 2010, p. 341.
  22. ↑ Blake 2010, p. 354.
  23. ↑ Blake 2010, p. 382.
  24. ↑ Blake 2010, p. 329.
  25. ↑ "How Queen's "Live Magic" became Tragic". Ultimate Classic Rock. 1 December 2019. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  26. ↑ "Live at Wembley 86". AllMusic. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  27. ↑ "Hungarian Rhapsody – Queen Live in Budapest". AllMusic. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  28. ↑ "Queen on tour: Magic tour 1986 [QueenConcerts]". www.queenconcerts.com. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  29. ↑ "Concert: Queen live at the Rasunda Fotbollstadion, Stockholm, Sweden [07.06.1986][QueenConcerts]". www.queenconcerts.com. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  30. ↑ Trainor, Liz (19 February 2019). "When Queen headlined Slane – your memories of that day in July 1986". The Irish News. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  31. ↑ "Concert: Queen live at the Wembley Stadium, London, UK [11.07.1986][QueenConcerts]". www.queenconcerts.com. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  32. ↑ "86-07-30_Frejus_poster". queenline.ca. Queen Live. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  33. ↑ Hamilton, Giorgina. "Remembering Freddie Mercury's incredible final concert with Queen – video". Smooth. Retrieved 9 October 2021.
  34. ↑ "The 35th Anniversary Of Queen's Last Performance With Freddie Mercury In Front Of 120,000 Fans". Rock Celebrities. 12 July 2021. Retrieved 9 October 2021.

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