queen play sun city

Ive been a fan of queen for as long as I can remember - posters on wall and every album bought - I cant beleive what I've heard today during the height of apartheid and in violation of worldwide divestment efforts they played Sun City - i know it was so long ago but i feel so sick and let down by people i thought were the heroes of my childhood. Shame on them

There's always another side to these things.

whats the other side - just looked at the sales figures for queen after they did live aid - when they first came to my attention - a band without scruples that would do anything for money is now my thoughts,

So if you've been a fan for as long as you can remember why have you only just found out about Sun City? It's hardly a secret.

Trolling?

Here's an interview with Brian May years after the fact.  Decide for yourself what you think after reading -

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Queen-566/Queen-Sun-City.htm

Another thing most people don't know is the fact that free tickets were given away to those who couldn't afford them (i.e. black people) to ensure the concerts would be played to mixed audiences.

Jesus fucking Christ, I am sick of hearing morons complain about the Sun City thing.  I'm glad they played it.  

People have this bizarre notion that everyone at the shows must have been a white supporter of apartheid.  There would've been plenty of people there who fit neither description and just wanted to see some live Queen, but you pinheads would deprive them of that because of where they lived.  There are ways to register your disapproval of a regime, but withholding live music and so forth hurts the wrong people.  Why not just stop giving them films in the cinema while you're at it?

Every time I hear people complain about the whole Sun City thing it gets me pissed. Who cares if there was some international boycott going on. Queen wasn't a political band and wanted to perform from every audience possible. They weren't gonna let some boycott stop them from entertaining people and sharing their music. Give me a fucking break.

It also proved that Queen had BALLS (going against an international boycott)!

I'm not sure about the other guys in the band but I'm pretty sure that Freddie was racist. You only have to listen to 'MARCH OF THE BLACK QUEEN' with it's use of the word "Nigger" to realise that Freddie was none too fond of ethnic minorities. Then there's the infamous goose-stepping scene in his video for 'I WAS BORN TO LOVE YOU'.
I've also heard that the fall out with his good friend Peter Straker came about because Freddie discovered that he was black. Come to think of it, didn't Bob Geldof say that the only way he got Queen to appear at Live Aid was to assure Freddie that the money would only be spent on white starving children?
And let's not forget his surprise appearance at a Combat 18 gig in 1987 in which he performed with the lads on stage and denied the holocaust in front of 5,000 screaming white supremicists.
So while I may not agree with his views I have to admire Freddie's brave stand against political correctness.

fatty.

Reading that BM interview the phrase 'don't piss down my neck and tell me it's raining' comes to mind.

Queen did it for the money. The USA market had gone and they wanted to expand into other markets like South America, Eastern Europe, and no doubt Asia would've been on the agenda if they hadn't stopped touring. SA/Africa was just another market. Every excuse people come up with to defend them is a rationalisation to avoid that point.

-fatty- wrote: "I'm not sure about the other guys in the band but I'm pretty sure that Freddie was racist. You only have to listen to 'MARCH OF THE BLACK QUEEN' with it's use of the word "Nigger" to realise that Freddie was none too fond of ethnic minorities. Then there's the infamous goose-stepping scene in his video for 'I WAS BORN TO LOVE YOU'.
I've also heard that the fall out with his good friend Peter Straker came about because Freddie discovered that he was black. Come to think of it, didn't Bob Geldof say that the only way he got Queen to appear at Live Aid was to assure Freddie that the money would only be spent on white starving children?
And let's not forget his surprise appearance at a Combat 18 gig in 1987 in which he performed with the lads on stage and denied the holocaust in front of 5,000 screaming white supremicists.
So while I may not agree with his views I have to admire Freddie's brave stand against political correctness."


:D Oh, fatty, if there is an award for best satiric poster, it must surely go to you. :D

BTW, any chance of you telling us more, from a few years ago, of how you've seen Freddie since his 'death'? :D

I agree with Holly. Whether we approve of what Queen did, we shouldn't pretend that they did it for 'noble' reasons. Not that it was their obligation to be 'noble'; as it is, I don't think it was.


When I was younger, I was disappointed that Queen had played at Sun City. Now, even though I personally wouldn't have done so, I'm not as disappointed as I once was as I now realise it's not my place to judge. If there is one thing I can't stand, it's moralism, and while I wouldn't have played Sun City if I was a member of Queen, I'm not going to judge them for making the choice to do so. When it comes to boycotts and the like, people have to make up their own mind. There are boycotts I support, and there are boycotts I oppose, like with anyone else; and I'm not going to penalise the guys because they oppose a boycott which I happen to support. For if I do support it, then I should take action myself. I can't, and shouldn't, expect others to take action on my behalf just to satisfy my conscience.

This interview with Brian May is really unbelievable. So, he saw all these black people in the audience - he must have been hallucinating. Sun City was the most shameless all-white, rich amusement center which no black person could afford - even if the whites had actually allowed them to attend. Queen did not go back to South Africa because they would have been excluded by the British musicians union - which already nearly happened after the first break of the UN boycott - they did not stay away because Little Steven disapproved, that is ridiculous. If they had not stayed away their carreer would have been over once and for all.

Brian said in this interview that they had thought very carefully about going which sheds a very unfavourable light on their collective intellectual ability - because it was very ill-advised to play Sun City. It was NOT just a concert somewhere in South Africa - it was a concert (series of concerts, rather) in a frivolous, all-white place in the middle of the so-called independent republic of  Bophuthatswana which was in fact a Bantustan - an area to which ethnically grouped black South Africans were forcefully relocated, thus losing their South African citizenship. To claim that playing in Sun City did any good against Apartheid is just not right. It would have been so much better if Queen had admitted that they made a grave error in judgement.

What also always annoyed me was the incredible hypocrisy by many people who would not even have crossed a street to help the South African black people but acted like Queen  had actually  invented Apartheid. Although it was  a very bad mistake to play there Queen was just a Rock band and it was totally ridiculous to crucify Quuen for their appearance while sparing the mighty Western governments who did virtually nothing to put an end to Apartheid.

I'm not in the position to judge what has happened then. If someone is in the position it's the people living there.

And the fact that Nelson Mandela had them playing there years later for his AIDS campaign, should indicate, that looking back it can not have been such a big mistake.

Soundfreak wrote: "And the fact that Nelson Mandela had them playing there years later for his AIDS campaign, should indicate, that looking back it can not have been such a big mistake."


I don't think one can judge it by whether Mandela has forgiven them. He's an extraordinary man who has forgiven people who have done far worse than what Queen may have done. On the other hand, I remember reading an absurd piece written, perhaps unsurprisingly, by some tabloid columnist who still hasn't forgiven Queen.