Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Only a year earlier Queen arguably ruled the stage at Wembley as part of Live Aid, the brief moment in time at the home of English football, the iconic twin towers crowning the glory of the band in what was to become their most talked about gig of their entire career; if you were there, if you saw it on television then you know exactly how incredible it was.
One year later, Wembley once more played host to the legendary band, and what was captured for posterity at the time on video and for The Tube television programme later that year, was it seems only part of the story.
It was the last tour the band would undertake with Freddie at the helm, the last time they would play the capital, and one of only five gigs to be played in England as the pressure of Freddie’s personal knowledge of the terrible disease that was killing him was a few years from being revealed. Looking back and having the ability to hold the entire Live At Wembley Stadium gig in your hands on vinyl is an experience that holds the heart as it beats strongly but plays on the mind that it one of the bittersweet, the beautiful and the bold holding back, not in performance but in terms of what was the driving force to the public.
The event is glorious in its sound, and the reproduction is fully deserving the quality of work that has gone into bringing the gig onto 180-gram vinyl, and for those that were not able to see the band during this period, the sense of occasion is such that every song feels enormous, colossal in its delivery, and immense in its time and space.
Across tracks such as the openers One Vision and Tie Your Mother Down, A Kind Of Magic, Under Pressure, the solo of Brighton Rock, Bohemian Rhapsody, the crowd interaction on Love Of My Life, Hammer To Fall, the sheer theatre of the cover of Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields’ Big Spender and in retrospective the lyrical touches of Friends Will Be Friends and We Are The Champions not only emphasise the magic of Queen, but also connection, the empathy the fan feels when they look back with authentic nostalgia of the impact of the big event that took the band out on a high before their time had truly come.
Live At Wembley Stadium is a magnificent recording to finally see the day on 180-gram vinyl; Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon inhabit for eternity the love shown them, and even after 40 years that concert underscores that reasoning completely.
Ian D. Hall