City:	Melbourne, Australia
Venue:	Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Centre
Date:	April 16, 1985

Queen played eight shows in Australia: four in Melbourne (April 16, 17, 19, 20) and four in Sydney (April 25, 26, 28, 29). They arrived in Melbourne a day earlier for a press conference. Freddie complained numerous times throughout the concert about the sound mixer getting the levels all wrong. The mics kept dying and the lights even went out at one point because a computer died. A nightmare for the band and crew alike. A fan who was in the front row recalled Freddie dealing well with the situation overall, usually apologetic in his manner, although he was visibly frustrated during Bohemian Rhapsody. When someone in the audience shouted for Mustapha at one point in the show, Freddie playfully replied, “Fuck Mustapha; you'll get it.” However, another account suggests Freddie angrily said, "Fuck it; you don't get it." At the end of the show, being as it was past midnight (the technical problems caused the show to go on much later than scheduled), Freddie said, "We'll see you again tonight." These events certainly did not happen on April 20, as Greg Brooks suggests in his revised Queen Live book (there was no show on April 21, as per Freddie's comment). Phil Collins attended this show. He later recalled being backstage before the show while Freddie was getting ready, and how angry the Queen frontman was that someone was there (even if it was Phil Collins). Roger Taylor would later recall how he thought Queen's show started to sound a bit stale by mid-1985. While his drumming often sounds uninspired in many shows this year, the band as a whole seem to have lost their sense of improvisation and spontaneity that characterized their show in earlier years. While the band would offer somewhat more enthusiastic performances next month in Japan, it was their triumphant performance at Live Aid in July that would give them much rejuvenation on many levels. That said, even after Live Aid, John Deacon revealed in an interview that the band are "not so much a group anymore. We're four individuals that work as Queen, but our working together as Queen is actually taking up less and less of our time." He also stated that he had been bored and depressed due to the inactivity between the last two world tours. In a 2013 interview with Record Collector, Roger frankly said how there were "whole tours that were pure farce." This may have been one of them. "It's hard to remember individual incidents. Some I'd rather not remember..."

Previous Concert

Next Concert

Back to 1985 Concerts