Why CLTCL instead of AOBTD at Live Aid?

I was watching Queen's performance at live aid, and I wonder why they didn't play another one bites the dust instead of crazy little thing called love. this way they would have played one of john's songs and this was just as if not as popular as CLTCL.. Also, without any sound check, using another guitar was more of a risk with technical difficulties.

Not the best of songs to pick for Live Aid, lyrically I mean. Also, AOBTD isn't the best song to dedicate to beautiful people. :p

Because that year Roger was playing that horribly sounding electric mess.

When a song is so consistently bad during a whole tour, bar the first night because it was played properly, I am glad they stuck to a shorter than regular CLTCL. It's half a miracle that it ended up being one of the highlights each night during the Magic Tour.

So you feel that doing a song about "biting the dust", during a special show for people who have nothing to eat and are thus in a way literally eating dust, would be a better idea than playing CLTCL?

My own view is that the weak link (all relative, of course) in the set was Hammer To Fall. Playing to a global audience, including many non-Queen fans, the band rightly chose instantly recognisable hits that lend themselves to audience participation. HTF was the exception. Personally, I wish they'd gone for a judiciously shortened Somebody To Love, which ticks all the boxes: well-known, rocky and singalong-able. AOBTD was their biggest American hit, of course, but I just don't think it has/had the necessary 'oomph' on stage. I think they were wise to leave it out.

[QUOTE] [b]RalphM wrote:[/b]
My own view is that the weak link (all relative, of course) in the set was Hammer To Fall. Playing to a global audience, including many non-Queen fans, the band rightly chose instantly recognisable hits that lend themselves to audience participation. HTF was the exception. Personally, I wish they'd gone for a judiciously shortened Somebody To Love, which ticks all the boxes: well-known, rocky and singalong-able. AOBTD was their biggest American hit, of course, but I just don't think it has/had the necessary 'oomph' on stage. I think they were wise to leave it out.[/QUOTE]

How would Brian have coped without one of his songs in the setlist!?

We Will Rock You ticks that box, does it not?!

[QUOTE] [b]RalphM wrote:[/b]
We Will Rock You ticks that box, does it not?![/QUOTE]

lol! Yep, sorry, my mistake.

Yeah, always though HTF is the odd one of in that list. It's the weakest of the lot, not a great song anyway.

Bo Rhap and Champions are ballads, Ga Ga electronic pop rock, Rock You stomp anthem and CLTCL oldies rockabilly, so of course they needed guitar driven rocker like Hammer To Fall!

Somebody to Love or AOBTD would have been more recognisable but the set list lacked the hard rock side of Queen. I think Hammer To Fall was an obvious choice being the newest rocker at the time. Now I'm Here or Tie Your Mother Down would have worked well too, I think.

To answer the question.....AOBTD is very hard on the vocals (nodules)....freddie had been warned against even playing by specialists for his throat...my thoughts are that even hammer to fall was a bit harsh...but it worked

he (brian) already had one too many songs in the live aid setlist as it was
maybe something huge to replace hammer?

but inretrospect it all worked perfectly on the day...so wtf do we know?

Wasn't Hammer to Fall their most recent single, excluding Thank God it's Christmas? I always thought that was the reason they had played it.
But also the fact that it was their only proper hard rock song in the setlist. They wanted to show the world they had moved on from Hot Space, hehe :).

Ok, now what if they had played "Staying Power"?? Without the Apology of course. :)

I have ambivalent attitude to HTF, maybe because of its bombast production. But I think it worked perfectly well on that day and was one of the songs which actually made the performance so entertaining. Not to mention that it was their most recent (if not the current?) single. Good choice.

[QUOTE]

[b]Johan wrote: [/b] So you feel that doing a song about "biting the dust", during a special show for people who have nothing to eat and are thus in a way literally eating dust, would be a better idea than playing CLTCL?[/QUOTE]

Now that you put it that way, hell yes.  Right after Fat Bottomed Girls.