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The latest episode of the official YouTube series Queen the Greatest Live focuses in on the band’s epic encores.
Back in the early days fans would be sent home with the likes of In The Lap Of The Gods or revved-up covers of Jailhouse Rock and Big Spender.
Yet from 1977 it soon dawned on the band that no finale could top the back-to-back singalongs of We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions.
In a new interview below, Sir Brian May said: “It’s that participation thing.
“The fact the fans can stretch their bodies upwards to the sky and sing and chant and stamp and clap to Rock You and Champions is kind of an unbeatable thing. You can’t really follow that.”
Roger Taylor shared: “I think audiences these days are aware the encore isn’t really the old-fashioned kind, which was, ‘Oh, that was so wonderful, we actually want more’. It’s built into the show. You’re expecting to play it. They’re expecting to hear it. And our encores have very well-known songs. It would feel quite weird if they’d come to a show and we hadn’t played them. So it’s not a secret.”
Sir Brian said how there are practical reasons for a set-break, allowing the band to regroup and rally for the home straight. The Queen guitarist said: “You have to go off and refresh at that point because you’ve given everything and you’re like a wet rag at the end of what we’ve done after two-and-a-half hours. You know, you need to go off, change your clothes and take a deep breath for that final push.”
Sir Brian reflected on Queen’s encores as a precision-tooled element to leave fans buzzing at the end of the night.
The 76-year-old said: “How do you want to send people out? It’s a big question, which we do ask ourselves. You know, what do you want to have in people’s heads as they go out? And I think it’s fulfilment.
“It’s like good sex. You know, you want to come out of it thinking, ‘Yeah, that was everything it should have been’. And you want people to be talking to each other: ‘Ah, that was awesome. Do you remember the bit where…?’ Just like we used to as kids when we left The Who shows.”
