Touring 80's

How come Queen only managed to do a stadium tour by 1986? I know they did South America, but why wasn't the Hot Space tour huge stadiums, and the Works tour - surely they were massive to do it by then?

Finally, I read a lot that Queen weren't big in the states in the 80's - how bigoted is America or is that an unfair comment? I mean can they not tell the difference between fun and seriousness in terms of the I Want to Break Free video...you know America, the land of the free and all that, is that a myth too!?

una999 wrote: How come Queen only managed to do a stadium tour by 1986? I know they did South America, but why wasn't the Hot Space tour huge stadiums, and the Works tour - surely they were massive to do it by then?

Finally, I read a lot that Queen weren't big in the states in the 80's - how bigoted is America or is that an unfair comment? I mean can they not tell the difference between fun and seriousness in terms of the I Want to Break Free video...you know America, the land of the free and all that, is that a myth too!?

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It's inaccurate to blame the entire country for not liking the video for IWTBF and thus losing interest in Queen. At the time, MTV was pretty much the only music video channel available in our country. It was MTV's decision not to play the video. Was the decision based on homophobia? Maybe. But whatever reason, it was a corporate decision. Personally, I think it is by far one of the most clever videos in Queen's video catalog.

But I don't believe a lack of  a video presence on a music video channel can be blame for massive loss of interest in an artist's material. Ultimately it is the music that is to blame.

I can't speak for the entire country, but I can say that as a big Queen fan from 1975 onward, by the time The Works was released I was not pleased with their new material. I remember buying The Works and with a room full of friends started listening to the album and absolutely hating Radio Ga Ga. Machines, Windows, World We Created...it all sounded pretty abysmal. Prowl was decent but an obvious attempt to top CLTCL. The Game was a huge success in the US based on the success of AOBTD and CLTCL, but even that album as a whole was underwhelming. None of the heavy rock type of tracks from the first seven albums was there, neither were the genius pastiches. AKOM as we all know was hit and miss. My friends and I enjoyed it, particularly because One Vision was the "theme song" for the film Iron Eagle, as well as the tracks from The Highlander. AKOM sounded more like a studio rock album than Flash Gordon, which was more a "soundtrack" album (to a rather silly super hero movie) than a "proper" collection of rock songs. The Miracle was the absolute bottom. Queen as a hard rock band was clearly gone. Innuendo was, hands down, the best of Queen's post 70s catalog.

So from my point of view it had less to do with bigotry than it did with the musical direction that Queen took during the 80s.

Interesting post, but sadly reaffirms the image of the US fans as fist pumping jocks into FM guitar rock :o)

To the first post, I'd say that Queen played more gigs on earlier UK tours - only in '86 actively sought to play fewer, bigger events. I dare say to preserve the fun and vocal chords!

Good thread.

dysan wrote: Interesting post, but sadly reaffirms the image of the US fans as fist pumping jocks into FM guitar rock :o)

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which also goes a long way to explain why 80s Metal Hair Bands became so popular here during the 80s. While Queen was conquering the rest of the world with their stadium pop anthems during the  80s, I was rocking out at shows by the likes of The Cult (Billy Duffy rules!), Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osborne, and Guns n Roses.

" I dare say to preserve the fun and vocal chords!"

Nice try.. 86 was the first time Queen saw that they could make money from the actual gigs rather than the record sales the gigs created. (86 was the only time a tour made a profit)

The only money to be made these days (thanks to the internet) is doing live stuff.

Queen were pioneers in this sense.

Great topic !

This is keepingme busy for a while ! And to give you something of a answer:

We have to take a look at this in retrospect , we are talking about the 70's and 80's here. At first stadium shows were a very rare occaision.... even for thebiggest artist of that time.

First of all a tour back then was for the purpose of suporting the album sales , to make money by selling more albums.
Nowadays money is being earned with touring , to compensate the dissapointing album sales , because of the internet, cdr copying, downloading , torrents etc.etc.

We experience it as normal that a medium act can fill stadiums like britney spears once did at the very start of er carreer. In the 70's shewould be glad to sell out a theatre....But in this modern digital time it can be highly promoted , we have digital ticket sales, wecan find anything on the internet about our favourite artists , and follew every step they make.

For me growing up in the 80's I had to buy pop magazines, and I was luckily to read a short story about Queen, maybe they'll go on tour, maybe a new album, maybe they will come to holland...Otherwise I had tvtext , the newspapers and 1 or 2 pop prgramms on the tube... Collection new queen items from different countries went by posted letters,and wait for ages fora reply. Then again pay the item (without credit cards, paypal or anythinglike that... but wehada personalcheck or a international money transfer,the latter took up to 4 weeks....) Then eventually my new item arrived by post...

Even the FC magazine , told me things which were all happened in the past when it arrived in my mailbox...

Things were diferent.... Queen could fill stadiums in 1984 in Europe I believe... but the Ahoy and Leiden were the biggest things we had.. Even our capital Amsterdam did not really offer any arena which hold 10.000+ And bands hatted not playing the capital !  All our stadiums were build in residental districts.... and people living there always complained when a concert was to be given in the stadium at the end of their street....

Imagine without internet or computers...distrubuting 50.000 tickets...On a concert which you only could promote by newspaper ad's , short mentions on pop shows....

I spoke to so many people which always read about Queen when the concert was played, and saying "damn if i knew they were comming I would have bought tickets"

Stadium shows were a rare thing.... which was developped in the 80's ...now in 2011 it is the most common thing...

The dutch promoter regretted he didn't do the Rotterdam stadium in 1986, and he contacted Queen for a stadiumshow in 1989 but our fred was to ill at that point...

I believe that if Fred didn't died, Queen would be like the stones : dissapointing album sales, zero single hits on the charts, huge stadium tours... Like that boring BON JOVI band, but of course a tad better than that arogant JON BON JOVI !

Well said FK. IWTBF was not the reason Queen lost fans in the US in the 80's. Queen produced less hard rock on their 80's albums. The drag of IWTBF is nothing as Glam metal was very popular in the 80's in the states just look at look of Poison, Motley Crue, Cinderella, KISS etc. No the reason was Queen unplugged Brian's guitar and too much pop and dance music dominated their albums from 80-91.

I don't think the Works and the Miracle are bad albums. Plenty material there to keep fans interested - then people say the Innuendo album was fantastic - was it really! All god's people, the hitman are painful on the ear, and innuendo could have been sped up.  Is this the world we created is objectively fantastic, in fact don't know why it wasn't released as a single.

mooghead - I know.

Queen was selling out the biggest arenas in the States for The Game tour.  

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think 'Flash' and 'Hot Space' preceded IWTBF and 'The Works'.  Three mostly abysmal LPs, with one hit for the FM radio /MTV/mostly white male Caucasian audience.  That being 'Under Pressure'.

I could go on, but there's plenty threads here to find more in-depth commentary.

una999 wrote: I don't think the Works and the Miracle are bad albums. Plenty material there to keep fans interested - then people say the Innuendo album was fantastic - was it really! All god's people, the hitman are painful on the ear, and innuendo could have been sped up.  Is this the world we created is objectively fantastic, in fact don't know why it wasn't released as a single.
Good point as I believe The Miracle was OK, however wished the album had more tunes like "I Want it All". The rest wa sfairly lame and was not what rock fans wanted to hear in 1989. It's funny, I bought Innuendo 18 years ago when I was 16 and thought it was a lound and real Queen sounding album, however listended to it recently and I was cringing especially taking more notice at the lyrics, "The Hitman", "Headlong" and "Deliah" are just embarrassing at best! But that's my view!

In regards to America, this topic has been discussed many times, my views still remain the same...Queen died in America by becoming more pop sounding, axing Brian May's guitar, having a Euro producer in Mack who was just plain shit, and Freddie looking like someone out of the Village People A once proud rock band going down this path is destined to die in America... But it is all hindsight, the flipside is, that Queen became bigger internationally when they lost America and made millions!

LAP wrote: una999 wrote: I don't think the Works and the Miracle are bad albums. Plenty material there to keep fans interested - then people say the Innuendo album was fantastic - was it really! All god's people, the hitman are painful on the ear, and innuendo could have been sped up.  Is this the world we created is objectively fantastic, in fact don't know why it wasn't released as a single.
Good point as I believe The Miracle was OK, however wished the album had more tunes like "I Want it All". The rest wa sfairly lame and was not what rock fans wanted to hear in 1989. It's funny, I bought Innuendo 18 years ago when I was 16 and thought it was a lound and real Queen sounding album, however listended to it recently and I was cringing especially taking more notice at the lyrics, "The Hitman", "Headlong" and "Deliah" are just embarrassing at best! But that's my view!

In regards to America, this topic has been discussed many times, my views still remain the same...Queen died in America by becoming more pop sounding, axing Brian May's guitar, having a Euro producer in Mack who was just plain shit, and Freddie looking like someone out of the Village People A once proud rock band going down this path is destined to die in America... But it is all hindsight, the flipside is, that Queen became bigger internationally when they lost America and made millions!

funny,  that village people look became freddie's most beloved and famous look years later.....Queen in america went downhill for only the music...had nothing to do with freddie's look..  are you old enough to remember?....I am.  when the Game was released the die hard (ANATO Fans)  wern't in love with the album,  they thought it was a decent record but didn't compare with earlier ones like opera, Queen2, ect.   The album did make queen a lot of new fans, with the big singles and all.  Hot Space was the album that killed the band.  Back in those days either you were a rocker or liked disco,   not like these days where everything is mixed.   even though i didn't become a proper fan until 1988, i do remember fans throwing away the Hot space album.  Queen turned disco, they felt betrayed.  they sold out!....yea, it's a bit silly now, but when your a teenager music is a big deal....they did have a top 40 a few years later  with Ga Ga, but it fell off the charts quickly.  I Want to break Free had nothing to do with it......The 80's were littered with crap like the culture club,  so that video should have fit in perfectly with that time period...... they were a non issue by the time that video came out......i will say that in 1989/91 that if freddie was healthy and announced  that they were releasing an album, and going on tour in america for the first time since 1982, it would have been huge.  Especially if The album was as strong as Innuendo.

I knew it, thanks Mike I won my bet with a mate, just  knewwwwwwwww 'Mike Hunt' would respond! Mate, saying Freddie had  the Vilage People look was only ONE reason why they fell out in America, only one of the many reasons fella...didn't American fans throw razor blades at him? True American fans of Quenn up until 1980 were also into Aerosmith, KISS, Led Zeppelin etc, lead singers with something in common, no clone looks playing disco!

I'm only looking at facts, not what if's. like your idea of Freddie being healthy in 89/91 and announcing a US tour...come on mate, based on what? "A Kind Of Magic" yeah that was huge in America, 'The Miracle' only went to what?? 24 in America and "I want it All" stalled at 50??, did you know that fella, didn't you remember that?? Yeah Queen were relevant in America at that point for sure, right up there with Bon Jovi, Poison, the Gunners etc, man this is fun lol.  Queen fell out of favour with their true American fans prior to 'Hot Spce' being released, 'Greatest Hits' in 81 stalled at 14, Under Prsssure sank at 29, the writing was clearly on the wall as disco died and the clone look was not the look in rock music fella! I love Queen more than any other band ever, but there are numerous resaons why Queen fell to pieces in America, but at the end of the day, thank God America isn''t the centre of the universe!

LAP wrote: I knew it, thanks Mike I won my bet with a mate, just  knewwwwwwwww 'Mike Hunt' would respond! Mate, saying Freddie had  the Vilage People look was only ONE reason why they fell out in America, only one of the many reasons fella...didn't American fans throw razor blades at him? True American fans of Quenn up until 1980 were also into Aerosmith, KISS, Led Zeppelin etc, lead singers with something in common, no clone looks playing disco!

I'm only looking at facts, not what if's. like your idea of Freddie being healthy in 89/91 and announcing a US tour...come on mate, based on what? "A Kind Of Magic" yeah that was huge in America, 'The Miracle' only went to what?? 24 in America and "I want it All" stalled at 50??, did you know that fella, didn't you remember that?? Yeah Queen were relevant in America at that point for sure, right up there with Bon Jovi, Poison, the Gunners etc, man this is fun lol.  Queen fell out of favour with their true American fans prior to 'Hot Spce' being released, 'Greatest Hits' in 81 stalled at 14, Under Prsssure sank at 29, the writing was clearly on the wall as disco died and the clone look was not the look in rock music fella! I love Queen more than any other band ever, but there are numerous resaons why Queen fell to pieces in America, but at the end of the day, thank God America isn''t the centre of the universe!
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Chart positions have nothing to do with overall success: Bon Jovi is enjoying a massively successful world tour--yet the singles off their album (The Circle) didn't do well on the charts.

True fans of a band STICK with the band through thick and thin. I'm glad Queen changed their music styles in the the 80s--to weed out the "bandwagon fans" and the "70s" fans. I'd rather have a band who tries out different styles, rather than sound practically the same each album (like AC/DC).

The band was relevant in America by 1992 (remember Wayne's World, and sadly because of Freddie's death). So if Freddie was alive in 1992, Queen playing a US tour would work perfectly fine.

Apparently, you also are forgetting that "Body Language" AND "Radio Ga Ga" were quite big in America (both tracks reached the top 20 on the billboard charts). The reason why Queen lost America was the lack of record support, the poor reaction to Hot Space, refusing to tour America after 1982, and the crybaby bible thumper's reactions to "I Want To Break Free."

The decline had absolutely nothing to do with Freddie's look.

LAP wrote: I knew it, thanks Mike I won my bet with a mate, just  knewwwwwwwww 'Mike Hunt' would respond! Mate, saying Freddie had  the Vilage People look was only ONE reason why they fell out in America, only one of the many reasons fella...didn't American fans throw razor blades at him? True American fans of Quenn up until 1980 were also into Aerosmith, KISS, Led Zeppelin etc, lead singers with something in common, no clone looks playing disco!

I'm only looking at facts, not what if's. like your idea of Freddie being healthy in 89/91 and announcing a US tour...come on mate, based on what? "A Kind Of Magic" yeah that was huge in America, 'The Miracle' only went to what?? 24 in America and "I want it All" stalled at 50??, did you know that fella, didn't you remember that?? Yeah Queen were relevant in America at that point for sure, right up there with Bon Jovi, Poison, the Gunners etc, man this is fun lol.  Queen fell out of favour with their true American fans prior to 'Hot Spce' being released, 'Greatest Hits' in 81 stalled at 14, Under Prsssure sank at 29, the writing was clearly on the wall as disco died and the clone look was not the look in rock music fella! I love Queen more than any other band ever, but there are numerous resaons why Queen fell to pieces in America, but at the end of the day, thank God America isn''t the centre of the universe!

 let's look at the facts...freddie with his village people look went to #1 with ANOBTD, and yes, they threw razor blades at him, but it was also one of queen's most sucessful tours.   Queen in the 70's never hit # 1...even Bo Rhap and Champions didn't hit # 1, so now you're blaming his stache for Under Pressure not hitting the top spot?...Why didn't somebody to love hit # 1 like AOBTD did?......It had nothing to do with his look.....Radio Ga Ga was a top 40 hit in 84, but rock radio stations stopped playing it because it wasn't rock and they wern't touring................................Why i think queen would have been big again?....the miracle hit #24 on the charts and I want It all hit #50  without the beneifit of promoting the album/single with a tour.  Now imagine if Queen went on tour?....Obviously those number's improve when a band goes on tour, common sense fella!.....