Would the Magic Tour have been possible without Live Aid ?

Without the success of Live Aid do you think Queen would of been able to sell out Wembley and other football stadiums across Europe ?

Maybe if they hadn't of appeared at Live Aid the Magic Tour would of been much smaller.

Without Live Aid they might have split up and there wouldn't have been a Magic album to begin with.

I think it's pretty certain that without the global acclaim the band received after their Live Aid performance, they'd have gone their separate ways. There was no way that EMI and QPL were going to miss the financial opportunity Live Aid presented them with.

They were also too bloody good a live act to not perform after that.

I don't think they would split up without Live Aid. With or without it, Mr Bad Guy would have still been a flop and there is no way the other three could have significant solo success outside of Queen. The band was the only real cash cow they ever had (but a good one!) and as time showed, they were always going to milk it as long as they fucking could. I don't think Freddie was very different in this respect, he just had a better technique which probably wouldn't involve teaming up with every single celeb out there. Coming back to your question though, I think Magic Tour would have been similar in size to The Works tour, mainly big arenas with an occasional stadium here and there.

I don't think the Magic Tour would happen if they didn't participate in Live Aid. If anything, I think they would have taken another brief hiatus after the Works Tour, if not completely split up. Probably lay low a bit after that backlash with Sun City. And perhaps they would have skipped over to The Miracle as their next album.

Things were internally a mess in the band by 1985. They almost certainly would have split after the Works tour had it not been for Live Aid.

So, basically, we have Bob Geldof to thank for everything Queen did post-1985.


Thanks, Sir Bob.

Costa86, re:

>So, basically, we have Bob Geldof to thank for everything Queen did post-1985.

He'd be probably 20% to thank. The other 80% going 20% to each member of Queen for delivering the performance that shook them back tot heir senses.

This p.o.v. is in danger of becoming reified into 'fact'. There were certainly problems within the band at this time but the popularity of The Works revitalised Queen. Remember, they could only two- thirds fill the Milton Keynes bowl 2 years earlier (65k capacity attendance was approx 45k).Their success at Live Aid would not have been possible without the massive boost The Works gave the band. The Works tour was also very successful commercially. People point to tensions by the end of the tour; however, that always seems to be the case with Queen towards the end of a tour; Freddie always seemed to want the tour to end and Brian didn't. Compared to Queen, Fred's solo album was a relative flop, as was Roger's Fun in Space and Strange Frontier. And Brian's Starfleet Project was also a critical and commercial flop. So the odds are that they would have continued on as Queen. They were never that close outside band activities and only came together as Queen because it was a successful vehicle for them. I think that would have continued, albeit maybe not to the extent it did after Live Aid, which did give them a further boost.

I'd like to think you're right. But there was so much more than the usual end of tour tensions.

Yes, The Works was a big album for them in Europe and much of the world. But the Sun City debacle was a major setback, and additionally Mercury was becoming increasingly alienated from the rest of the band.

Lots of revisionist history has been told, but the reality is - by 1985 Mercury's ego was out of control. He was convinced he could make a solo album as good as a Queen album. His advance for Mr Bad Guy was 3x what Queen got for The Works. The mid 80s were the worst time for Queen in terms of ego battles over money and songwriting credits. Just watch the interviews from the period - Queen had become almost purely a business for the band by that point. A far cry from their sense of togetherness and common goals a decade prior.

And then there's Mercury's personal life, which was also out of control. Paul Prenter was largely responsible for bringing Mercury to the dark side of the 80s gay scene, and solely responsible for burning a lot of the band's US contacts in 1984 - contacts that they had spent years building up.

After Live Aid, the rest of the band held an intervention with Mercury, saying that they'll get back together on one condition - that he ditched Prenter, which he did. It was out of this bitterness that Prenter went to the Sun in 1987 with the AIDS story (who told Prenter the truth is an unsolved mystery, as he was out of the loop long before Mercury knew he had the disease).

Live Aid changed everything for Queen. One Vision was the first song they'd written together in years, and that's saying something. And Roger has stated numerous times that the Magic tour was the best Queen tour. In reality - other tours, like South America in 1981, were more successful in certain ways, but without a doubt the events behind the scenes are a contributing factor to the slightly rosy recollection of 1986 all these years later.

They took 1987 off not because of band tensions. It was because Mercury knew he was ill and wanted to do Barcelona more than anything. One can only wonder how that conversation went.

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

who told Prenter the truth is an unsolved mystery, as he was out of the loop long before Mercury knew he had the disease[/QUOTE]

He could've easily inferred it... there was that relatively new disease, people in Freddie's circle had it, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume he would as well.

[QUOTE] [b]Sebastian wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

who told Prenter the truth is an unsolved mystery, as he was out of the loop long before Mercury knew he had the disease[/QUOTE]

He could've easily inferred it... there was that relatively new disease, people in Freddie's circle had it, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume he would as well.[/QUOTE]

Ha, I knew someone would point that out. Glad it was you ;)

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

I'd like to think you're right. But there was so much more than the usual end of tour tensions.

Yes, The Works was a big album for them in Europe and much of the world. But the Sun City debacle was a major setback, and additionally Mercury was becoming increasingly alienated from the rest of the band.

Lots of revisionist history has been told, but the reality is - by 1985 Mercury's ego was out of control. He was convinced he could make a solo album as good as a Queen album. His advance for Mr Bad Guy was 3x what Queen got for The Works. The mid 80s were the worst time for Queen in terms of ego battles over money and songwriting credits. Just watch the interviews from the period - Queen had become almost purely a business for the band by that point. A far cry from their sense of togetherness and common goals a decade prior.

And then there's Mercury's personal life, which was also out of control. Paul Prenter was largely responsible for bringing Mercury to the dark side of the 80s gay scene, and solely responsible for burning a lot of the band's US contacts in 1984 - contacts that they had spent years building up.

After Live Aid, the rest of the band held an intervention with Mercury, saying that they'll get back together on one condition - that he ditched Prenter, which he did. It was out of this bitterness that Prenter went to the Sun in 1987 with the AIDS story (who told Prenter the truth is an unsolved mystery, as he was out of the loop long before Mercury knew he had the disease).

Live Aid changed everything for Queen. One Vision was the first song they'd written together in years, and that's saying something. And Roger has stated numerous times that the Magic tour was the best Queen tour. In reality - other tours, like South America in 1981, were more successful in certain ways, but without a doubt the events behind the scenes are a contributing factor to the slightly rosy recollection of 1986 all these years later.

They took 1987 off not because of band tensions. It was because Mercury knew he was ill and wanted to do Barcelona more than anything. One can only wonder how that conversation went.
[/QUOTE]

I don't think anything you've said there negates what I've said. I don't think they would've necessarily broken up if it wasn't for Live Aid. Queen was both the 'home' they returned to whenever times got tough, and also the day job/money spinner that, as professional musicians, they made their living at. Their solo careers were relative flops compared to Queen. Re: South Africa, they certainly did take a lot of stick for that (still do) but IIRC they circled the wagons and defended what they did. Didn't Brian go in front of the Musicians Union and put his case? If they were going to split up, why bother defending the band as vociferously as they did? As I said, I don't think things would've been quite the same if Live Aid had never happened but that doesn't mean a break up.

ps do you have a source for the 'intervention' thing about Prenter? I've never seen that before.

They could've certainly split up if it hadn't been for Live Aid but that wouldn't have meant an irrevocable decision. As you say, their off-Queen efforts weren't by any means successful, so they would've eventually regrouped. It happened even without Fred, in real life, once Brian's short lived success drained out and they chose the 'Queen+' moniker (which automatically increases their audience tenfold at the very least).

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

Live Aid changed everything for Queen. One Vision was the first song they'd written together in years, and that's saying something.
[/QUOTE]

John wasn`t part of the One Vision song writing. He was on Holiday...AGAIN...