Sony Music Vision Presents Queen BudapestSony Music Vision presents Queen Budapest, the first Western stadium rock show to take place behind the Iron Curtain, and the final filmed Queen live performance. Queen Budapest was released globally in cinemas and IMAX the first week of October for a limited time only, in partnership with Trafalgar Releasing.

An announcement from Legacy/Sony Music Vision described Queen’s Budapest concert film and November products.    

“Filmed on July 27, 1986, at Budapest’s Népstadion during the band’s ‘The Magic Tour’, Queen Budapest captures the band's final filmed performance with Freddie Mercury at their live peak, just five shows before their final show. The film features hits such as We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, Under Pressure and BohemianRhapsody, along with an acoustic take on the traditional Hungarian folk song Tavaszi Szél Vizet Áraszt.

“The concert was a groundbreaking moment, as Queen became the first Western rock band to perform a stadium show behind the Iron Curtain during a period of profound cultural and political change. In addition to 80,000 tickets selling out, an estimated 45,000 people listened to the group outside, with some fans having travelled from as far away as Russia and Poland. The show was filmed on 35 mm film by Hungary’s best cameramen using 17 cameras and 25 miles of film. The Hungarian government approved the entire operation, which was a first for a Communist State.

“Queen Budapest will be released to mark the 40th anniversary of this pivotal moment in the band’s history, and the film has been meticulously restored in 4K from the original filmed 35mm footage by Sir Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post Production facility in New Zealand, with newly remixed audio from the original multitrack recordings.

Queen Budapest will also be released as a multi-format audio package via Legacy Recordings, the catalogue division of Sony Music, internationally, and Hollywood Records in the U.S. and Canada on November 6.

The soundtrack, newly remixed from the original multitrack by Queen’s studio team, will be released alongside the Blu-Ray, DVD, CD & Digital editions as a 3LP vinyl set for the very first time. 

Queen Budapest is directed by János Zsombolyai. Sony Music Vision is the distributor.”

Queen Budapest CD Track ListingCD 11. One Vision2. Tie Your Mother Down3. In The Lap Of The Gods… Revisited4. Seven Seas Of Rhye5. Tear It Up6. A Kind Of Magic7. Under Pressure8. Another One Bites The Dust9. Who Wants To Live Forever10. I Want To Break Free11. Looks Like It’s Gonna Be A Good Night – Improv12. Guitar Solo13. Now I’m Here

CD 21. Love Of My Life2. Tavaszi Szél Vizet Áraszt3. Is This The World We Created…?4. (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care5. Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart)6. Tutti Frutti7. Bohemian Rhapsody8. Hammer To Fall9. Crazy Little Thing Called Love10. Radio Ga Ga11. We Will Rock You12. Friends Will Be Friends13. We Are The Champions14. God Save The Queen

My public profile has been way more visible after being filmed along with Queen co-founders, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, in their 2012 Queen at 40 documentary, directed by Matt O’Casey for BBC Television and issued and expanded as Queen: Days Of Our Lives The Definitive Documentary of the World’s Greatest Rock Band as a 2014 DVD and Blu-Ray via Eagle Vision regularly broadcast on cable TV outlets.

I was subsequently quoted describing Queen on www.brianmay.com,  “As American journalist Harvey Kubernik put it, ‘it wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll, it was Broadway.’” 

As Freddie himself said, “A concert is not a live rendition of our album. It’s a theatrical event.”  

Queen’s 1976 stage repertoire included an encore of Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields’ song “Big Spender” initially done on the boards by Shirley MacLaine in the Broadway musical Sweet Charity.  Mercury first heard Shirley Bassey’s 1967 version of the tune on BBC Radio and then by Liza Minnelli. “Big Spender” is on Queen Live at Wembley ’86.  

I saw Queen perform three times during the seventies and interviewed Freddie Mercury twice-once in Beverly Hills for the now defunct Melody Maker and in London during 1975 and ‘76.   

Our first conversation was at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. It was a Special Melody Maker report Killer Queen Slay America!

Mercury regally waltzed into the room, stuck out his hands, and greeted fellow journalist Justin Pierce and me with “Hello darlings. What do you think of my black fingernail polish?” 

I replied to him, “Freddie, I grew up in Hollywood. I know what kind of paint color real stars wear. So, while in L.A., why don’t you go over to Ball Beauty on Fairfax Ave? My cousin Shelia Kaye and Cher get their makeup supplies at that shop. It’s near Norty’s Music Center. Ask one of the women at your Elektra Records label office on La Cienega Blvd. to drive you there.”           

Mercury poured a glass of champagne and announced, “Please put the tape machine on.” Freddie thoroughly enjoyed trumpeting Queen and discussing the machinations of their mid-seventies career. 

We must have spent the first 10 minutes talking about performers Liza Minnelli and Judy Garland.

I saw Judy sing in 1963 at her CBS-TV Judy Garland Show taping in Television City in a memorable duet with Barbra Streisand. In 1975 I sat next to Liza at a Rolling Stones 1975 Fabulous Forum concert. Freddie had seen Minelli at the London Palladium in the very early seventies.

Mercury was stunned. “If you come to London, do call my publicist Tony Brainsby. We must do this again.” And we did, but this time he was wearing green nail polish.  

Freddie had an air of confidence and mega-stardom destiny about him. The boy had a keen sense of the pop music process and about being a star on and off the stage.

I spoke with Freddie about a recording session he, Taylor, and May cut of “I Can Hear Music” b/w “Goin’ Back” under the pseudonym Larry Lurex. It was around the time of the recording of Queen’s debut album (for legal reasons, they couldn’t call it a “Queen” single). 

I had a delightful chat with Brian May after a Queen show at a party Elektra Records tossed in Hollywood, where Brian mentioned he saw the Jimi Hendrix Experience a few times.

May recalled in 1967 he was on the entertainment committee at Imperial College in London who booked the trio for a cheap rate. Before Queen and Smile, Brian was in 1984, who opened a show for Hendrix or played at a venue with him.   

In my conversation with the visionary A&R man and former record label executive at UNI/MCA and later 20th Century Records, Russ Regan, he lamented that one failure in the music business was not acquiring Queen in 1973 for a North American deal, losing out in a bidding war to Jac Holzman at Elektra.

Regan gave The Beach Boys their name and at UNI inked Elton John to the company and Barry White to 20th Century. “I loved Queen’s songwriting, harmonies and the sound I heard on the tape sent to me.”     

I think it’s time again, after 50 years, to write about Queen and Freddie Mercury, utilizing my Stateside 1975 interview with him, reminding the world about this talented, charismatic performer, and truly charming character.     

Harvey Kubernik Freddie Mercury 1975 Interview    

It was mid-afternoon in Beverly Hills as Freddie Mercury peered over the spacious swimming pool of the Hilton Hotel and reflected on Queen’s latest tour of the States.

“The tour has been going just great. The only drawback has been the problems with my voice, which I’ve been over-taxing. But since I’ve been taking care of it and resting more, it’s been fine. The problem is that when you do a tour, you try to schedule the concerts as close as possible.

“Therefore, it’s like a constant workout. However, at this moment it’s raring to go and at the conclusion of this tour, we’re going to take a rest in Hawaii, which we really deserve. From there it’ll be on to Japan and Australia.”

The success story of Queen is remarkable when one considers the time in which they’ve become one of the world’s most popular bands. In Japan, they were recently voted one of the top three bands in the world, and that’s without even doing one date in the Orient.

What does Freddie see as being the key to their phenomenal following? “I can’t pinpoint it, but there’s something about our music that’s different and unlike anybody else’s.

“I believe that’s our major strong point. But there’s other ingredients. Besides the fact that our timing has helped, there is the fact that we take risks. We’re not one of those groups that go through every stage, for we skipped a few hurdles and we’re willing to take the chances that brought us to our level of acceptance.

“This American tour is a perfect example. To undertake this kind of massive tour is not unheard of, but it is a risk. People were constantly telling us about the American economy and how the biggest groups are having trouble filling venues.

“And for us to come on as strong as we are, headlining after only half a previous tour, shows how confident we are, or what you can put across unless you were a headliner.             

“And now we’ve proved we can do it. Here we are, the first time in L.A. and we’ve sold out two shows, and it’s simply an amazing feeling.”

That feeling is bound to be even greater on subsequent tours for Queen who are only now breaking into the American record charts with their single recording of “Killer Queen” from Sheer Heart Attack.

The gentleness and buoyancy of the tune is in marked contrast to the high level of energy that characterizes their first two albums.

It is only on the third album that the diversity really became apparent. However, Mercury really doesn’t look at it as a great change: “The thing I hate is trying to pinpoint everything for everybody.

“People always ask questions like, ‘Why did you write such and such a lyric and what does it mean? That’s now what it’s all about. The one thing the British press has been trying to do for years is to pinpoint and categorize. It really annoys us.

“We came out with ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ as a single, which is raunchy, and then we decided on ‘Killer Queen’ for a later release. The first thing they do is go up to you and ask ‘What are you up to?’ This is our music and it’s up to the individual to interpret it. It’s not up to us to come out with a product and label it.

“It would be boring if everything was laid out and everybody knew what it was all about all the time. I like people to make up their interpretation.

“They also want to categorize my stage image. I remember back in an interview where I said, ‘I play on the bisexual thing.’ Of course I play on it. It’s simply a matter of wherever my mood takes me. If people want to know and ask me if I’m gay, I tell them it’s up to themselves to find out. I’m just being my flamboyant self and having a good time,” he smiled.      

Even though Mercury prefers not to try and analyze Queen’s music, he discussed their cumulative work in a logical manner: The first LP was very raw and full of freshness.

“It was simply a reflection of what we’d been doing for so long and we just wanted to get it out of our system. On the second album we found out that even though we had a formula we didn’t necessarily have to keep it.

“Therefore, we dabbled at other things. Sheer Heart Attack was something different again. We wanted to make it interesting for ourselves as well as the listener. Hopefully, we succeeded on both counts. When we’re on stage we try to do the same thing.

“We’re perfectionists. Although all of us write, it doesn’t necessarily mean that every song composed will appear on an album.

“Having all the members write adds to our versatility, and that’s another strong point. On the last album we wanted to create a certain feel, and did. However, there were so many ideas and things that we wanted to do and have yet to carry out.

“You simply can’t do everything on one album. Lots of groups eventually burn themselves out due to lack of new ideas. But at this point, there’s no way we’re going to burn out. In fact, presently we’re stronger than ever.

“We do rock ‘n’ roll, and our presentation is just a way of putting across the music. We view albums and concerts as two spheres of work. There’s a different level in the studio as compared to when you’re on stage. But when we’re before an audience we let loose,” Freddie underscored.

Mercury was at the end of the US tour. It was interesting to know how he felt the English music market differs from the American.

“Even though singles may have been more important at one time in Britain, I feel that the stress on the singles and the albums is becoming pretty even. If you play too much on singles you can quite easily become a singles group.

“At that point it’s almost impossible to revert back to albums. I feel we’re in a fortunate position for we’ve only released four singles, including our new one. Therefore, we’ve achieved a balance. I think the same thing is true in America, though we’ve had to rely on response to our albums to carry us through. It wasn’t really till ‘Killer Queen’ that we received mass exposure on a commercial level.

“Back home, you have to be very careful of what you say or do because you’re in a position of immense responsibility. In fact, it can sometimes get ridiculous.

“We have this black-and-white theme that we carry out in England and it’s very strong. It has even got to the point where the audiences dress and look like me to a tee. They’re very faithful and it’s beautiful. On this tour, in Dallas, there was even a fan dressed with black makeup on one side of his face and white on the other, and it was marvelous.”

As for his own musical tastes Mercury says: “I listen to all kinds of music from Hendrix to Liza Minelli, all the way back to Mae West. I also enjoy Flo & Eddie when I hear them on the radio. They’re simply a riot.

“I also enjoy Joni Mitchell tremendously, and am constantly awed by her vocal phrasing as well as the amazing things she writes. She’s simply beautiful.”

Besides devoting the last few years to Queen, band members took time to record a single, “I Can Hear Music” and “Goin’ Back” pressed up under the name Larry Lurex.

In the early '70s, Robin Geoffrey Cable was a house engineer at Trident Studios in London, owned by Queen's initial manager Norman Sheffield. At one point, Cable was at work on his own musical project, but he enlisted Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor to add some parts. A pseudonym was devised for Mercury. "Robin liked the idea of spoofing Gary Glitter and the Glam Rock movement, so he came up with 'Larry Lurex!'" May recalled following Cable's passing in 2020. "So, in a sense our first ever release on vinyl was under the name 'Larry Lurex.'"

I’d never associate members of Queen with Brill Building songwriters Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, Phil Spector, Gerry Goffin and Carole King or expect cover versions of The Ronettes and The Byrds. I had to ask Freddie, how did this collaboration come about?

“It was simply a by-product. We’d already completed our first album [at Trident Studios], and a producer friend [Robin Cable] told us about this record he wanted to put out just for fun.

“He said he wanted us to do it, but we told him he couldn’t use our name. Actually there were quite a number of studio musicians on it besides ourselves. It was in the days of Gary Glitter and Alvin Stardust.

“We never took it quite seriously since it didn’t have anything to do with Queen. It was only when we achieved popularity and people started figuring out that it was us that anybody was interested. It was just something rock stars dabble in once in a while, and I was quite pleased with the outcome.”    

(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 21 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.

Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In2021 they wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble.  Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters.

His writings are in several book anthologies, most notably The Rolling Stone Book Of The Beats and Drinking With Bukowski.   Harvey wrote liner notes to the CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, The Essential Carole King, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special, The Ramones’ End of the Century and Big Brother & the Holding Company Captured Live at The Monterey International Pop Festival.

During 2006, he spoke at the special hearings initiated by The Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation. In 2017, Kubernik appeared at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, as part of their Distinguished Speakers Series).

Photo by Denis O’ReganThe post Sony Music Vision Presents Queen Budapest first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.