Bob Geldof did not want them on the bill.
He had agreed to include Queen in the Live Aid lineup only reluctantly, pushed by promoter Harvey Goldsmith. By the summer of 1985, Geldof was not alone in thinking their moment had passed. Their biggest hits were nearly a decade old. Critics had started writing them off. Privately, the band itself was wondering if it was finished.
Then came July 13, 1985.
What nobody watching that day knew was what had happened the week before. Queen had booked the 400-seat Shaw Theatre near King's Cross in London and rehearsed their 21-minute set down to the exact second. Not the general shape of it. The exact second. Six songs, every beat drilled until nothing could go wrong.
And then, reportedly, their roadies disabled the sound limiters on the PA before the set. Every other band on that stage was capped. Queen was not.
At 6:41 PM, Freddie Mercury walked out. White jeans. White tank top. Studded armband. Seventy-two thousand people erupted.
He sat at the piano and played the opening of Bohemian Rhapsody, not the whole song, just enough to set the crowd on fire. Then he stood. Strode to the microphone.
Radio Ga Ga filled the stadium. Seventy-two thousand people raised their hands in perfect unison, one of the most iconic images of the entire decade.
Then Freddie stopped the band. He turned to the crowd. He opened his mouth and sang a single sustained note.
""Aaaaaaay-o.""
And waited.
Seventy-two thousand people sang it back. He went higher. They followed. Higher still. They stayed with him. Back and forth, the note climbing, the crowd holding on, the moment stretching into something that felt almost sacred.
It would later be called The Note Heard Round the World.
They tore through Hammer to Fall, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, a shortened We Will Rock You, and finally We Are the Champions. The stadium shook.
Twenty-one minutes after they walked on, Queen walked off.
Bob Geldof, the man who had not wanted them there, said afterward: ""Queen were absolutely the best band of the day. They played the best, had the best sound, used their time to the full. It was the perfect stage for Freddie: the whole world.""
An estimated 1.9 billion people across 150 nations had been watching. In 2005, music industry insiders voted it the single greatest rock performance in history. Not one of the greatest. The greatest.
Authors and musicians who were there have said those 21 minutes may have saved the band itself, that Queen was on the verge of a permanent split, and that afternoon reminded all four of them what they were still capable of together.
Freddie Mercury died on November 24, 1991. He was 45 years old.
But on July 13, 1985, for 21 minutes, standing before 72,000 people under a London summer sky, he was the most alive person on earth.
When BILL MURRAY filmed KINGPIN, they needed to shoot him bowling 3 strikes. The Farrelly Brothers told the hundreds of extras to keep their energy up because it could take him a while. Murray immediately rolls 3 strikes in a row and the crowd erupted in genuine amazement.
I like & respect the honesty & clarity. I see what has happened. One thing sticks in the throat, though. The ‘irony’ bit. That none of the observation incidents affected his choices/tactics in the ‘affected’ games. That could easily have been different.
At the 1989 Academy Awards ceremony, Sean Connery and Roger Moore shared the stage with Michael Caine to present the award for Best Supporting Actor.
The trio delighted the audience with a humorous skit in which they jokingly debated their respective merits, culminating in Connery uttering his iconic line, “My name is Bond,” while pointing to his fellow 007.
This scene is why this movie was the most expensive movie back when it was released. An absolutely mind-blowing action sequence.
The best part of this scene was the look on Arnold's face after he said "negative" cause he wasn't actually sure if the missiles would detonate the Nukes.
James Cameron said in this scene he wanted to make sure there were no ricochet sounds that you would normally hear in a movie shoutout. Because the Terminator is such a skilled marksman, he hits everything he aims for, and he intends that none of the rounds ricochet. Otherwise, they might cause a casualty and violate Connor's orders. Brilliant attention to detail.
The Season 1 finale of The Good Place (2016) is one of the all-time great sitcom twists. Watching Eleanor slowly piece it together while everything suddenly clicks into place was such a ridiculous rush the first time through.
It had to happen! @F1 now has its own version of Monopoly, with circuits instead of streets on the board. Perhaps someone should broadcast a contest involving Bernie, @ZBrownCEO, Flavio, Toto and others with a flair for managing $$$...: