Brian May on Freddie Mercury’s ‘anger and insecurity’ in most intimate footage | Music | Entertainment

This week Sir Brian May was welcomed by lucky fans as introduced the Queen Rock Montreal premiere at the BFI IMAX in London.

The newly restored 1981 concert film is screening in over 400 IMAX cinemas from today until January 21.

Praising the remastered work, the Queen guitarist highlighted the intimacy of the footage and how close the audience will feel to Freddie Mercury, who died just 10 years after it was captured.

Much of the camera work in the film is focused on the late singer, which at the time was slightly annoying for the rest of the band, but now he’s gone couldn’t be more of a blessing for Sir Brian.

Sir Brian shared: “A little thing, which is a personal aside, you’ll notice that a lot of the time you don’t see us in this film, you see Freddie. And I think at the time that was also a sort of consternation for us because we’d always been a band.

“Now looking at it, it’s such a boon because now we don’t have Freddie. Things being what they are, it’s wonderful to watch the world through Freddie’s eyes. You are so close to him. I can’t think of any other record of our shows in which you are so intimately in contact with Freddie. I mean his face is big [on the IMAX screen] as you’ll see. And you can see everything that’s going on in his head.”

Sir Brian added: “You can see his anger, you can see his insecurity, you can see his consciousness that he can move people right to the back of the auditorium. And to me, it’s something very emotional to watch him.”

Queen Rock Montreal is screening in over 400 IMAX cinemas worldwide from January 18-21 and tickets can be booked here.