In recent episodes, the band has confirmed a philosophy of starting shows hard and fast. This week, in exclusive new interviews with Brian May and Roger Taylor, the two share how a well-structured set list can build atmosphere and shift mood, holding fans rapt until the final note of “We Are The Champions.”
“Set lists are a very interesting case,” says Brian. “You have all these songs and everything and what is the optimum way to put them across? Do you just go in there and randomly work your way through where you can and that's how everybody starts. But wouldn't it be nice if you can take the audience on a journey and optimize the mood that happens?”
“The thing is, you want to quit before they want you to quit, you have to kind of be a little bit ahead of the game and we evolved this kind of shape to a show which is basically come on big. I mean, there are variations of this, but the shape was generally, come on big, give them what they've been waiting for. They’re full of adrenaline. They want to rock hard, hard, hard. So the first two or three songs hit them hard in different ways, different tempos, different kind of atmospheres, but all hard rock.”
“It's really you try and make an impact with the first song visual and obviously sort of an aural attack really…and then you try and space the songs intelligently, but you really want to go bang, bang, bang, bang at the beginning of a show,” adds Roger. “And then the show can just take its normal sort of course and we meander all over the place with different styles of stuff, and then you'll have a sort of hiatus, a sort of calm spot, which is normally Brian, he's very good at that. He'll just have an acoustic guitar at the beginning. We'll do something on our B stage, which is like right up into the audience, which is much more sort of close contact, you know, and more intimate….and then we'll go back to the main stage for the sort of big grand run-up to the end of the show, which is the sort of quite big numbers, you know, sort of big grand spectacular numbers.”
Pick up your copy of Queen’s “Greatest Hits” here.
See also:
Queen rock vintage Under Pressure performances on The Greatest Live
Queen rock vintage Sheer Heart Attack performances on The Greatest Live
Queen: Freddie Mercury personal collection headed to auction
Queen rock 1975 Ogre Battle performance on The Greatest Live series
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