Queen Rock Montreal captures the world’s most iconic rock band at the very peak of their live powers. Recorded in 1981 and recently released as a record-breaking digitally restored IMAX concert film, this landmark moment in the band’s history is now being released as both double Blu-Ray and double 4K Ultra High Definition packages, plus double CD and triple vinyl packages.

Queen Rock Montreal presents Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon at their most exciting and exhilarating. As Brian May puts it, this is Queen “live and dangerous.”

Queen were on all-conquering form when they returned to Montreal, Canada for the fourth time in November 1981 to play two huge concerts at the 18,000-seat Forum. This pair of Montreal concerts marked an historic moment for Queen.

After their massive success in the 1970s, the band entered the 80s bigger than ever, with the hugely successful The Game album producing their two biggest ever US singles in Another One Bites The Dust and Crazy Little Thing Called Love (both Billboard No.1’s), followed by the UK No.1 single Under Pressure.

Queen’s return to Montreal came after almost two years of touring, including their very first tours of South and Central America, which saw the band playing two nights at Sao Paulo’s Morumbi Stadium to more than 150,000 devoted fans. As a result, when the band arrived in Canada in November 1981 they were in electrifying form.

“Montreal is one of our favorite cities, it’s a great audience there, very full of energy,” says Brian May. “We’d played this particular venue, The Forum, several times before, and it was always full of really enthusiastic people giving us a lot of energy back.”

The original concerts, which took place on November 24 and 25, 1981, were truly ground-breaking. They were arranged specifically to be filmed for a full-length concert film to document their live show. Director Saul Swimmer planned to shoot them using state-of-the-art Double Anamorphic 35mm footage, which allowed it to be projected on a gigantic, five-storey high screen. Backstage tensions between the members of Queen and Swimmer could have caused problems, but instead they propelled the band to new heights.

“We were very, very hyped up, some of the tempos are really fast, there’s a lot of really incisive, angry playing,” says May.

Says Taylor: “It’s fascinating to now realize how free we were on stage in 1981. It’s a four piece, just the four of us in Queen, and to see Freddie. It’s like being on stage with the band because the cameras are very high quality for the time. I’ve never seen anything that makes you feel quite so involved with the performance.”

Side A:
1. Intro
2. We Will Rock You (Fast)
3. Let Me Entertain You
4. Play The Game
5. Somebody To Love

Side B:
1. Killer Queen
2. I’m In Love With My Car
3. Get Down, Make Love
4. Save Me

Side C:
1. Now I’m Here
2. Dragon Attack
3. Now I’m Here (Reprise)
4. Love Of My Life
5. Under Pressure

Side D:
1. Keep Yourself Alive
2. Drum And Tympani Solo
3. Guitar Solo
4. Flash
5. The Hero

Side E:
1. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
2. Jailhouse Rock
3. Bohemian Rhapsody
4. Tie Your Mother Down

Side F:
1. Another One Bites The Dust
2. Sheer Heart Attack
3. We Will Rock You
4. We Are The Champions
5. God Save The Queen

From Freddie Mercury’s opening cry of “Hello Montreal. Long time no see. You wanna get crazy?”, things heat up very quickly thereafter, as from the musical opener We Will Rock You (fast version) and a sweeping Let Me Entertain You, on through into the trilogy of magnificence that was Play The Game and Somebody To Love, and flipping the first vinyl over and then getting the thunderous Killer Queen, I think it was obvious to everyone that no group blended melodic, operatic ballads with thunderous hard rock quite like they did.

Rounding out the first vinyl LP with the propulsive underlying I’m In Love With My Car and both the enthrallingly personal Get Down, Make Love, and a virtually bombastically cultured Save Me, the powerful vocal acrobatics of Mercury, May’s dazzling six-string pyrotechnics, Deacon’s rock solid heartbeat bass, and Taylor’s unstoppable rhythmic display, not to mention the unique combination of all four voices, is as gripping as any live show you could have ever seen in history.

The second vinyl LP opens on a gripping Now I’m Here, a track lyrically about the pressures of going into the studio and having to perform Dragon Attack, a quick reprise of Now I’m Here, and then we get one of the true highlights here, their signature, achingly diligent ballad Love Of My Life, and the immense Under Pressure.

Flipping the vinyl over (which just so happens to always have been on my favorite things to do) and we next get treated to the frantic Keep Yourself Alive, which is itself backed by a Drum And Tympani Solo which bleeds seamlessly into the Brian May Guitar Solo, before two cuts from the Flash Gordon soundtrack are brought forth: the magnificently operatic, cinematic Flash and the more languishing The Hero.

The third and final vinyl LP acts as more of a greatest hits ride, as it opens on the rambunctiously seductive Crazy Little Thing Called Love, a vibrantly authentic cover of Jailhouse Rock, and then we get another of the genuine highlights here, the soaring, veritably towering Bohemian Rhapsody, which is itself backed by one of my all-time favorites, the speed-fest of Tie Your Mother Down.

Flipping the vinyl over one last time on this lush three-record set, and next we get the rhythmic Another One Bites The Dust, with the last few songs being just as spectacular as the ones that have gone before, and again capture the band at their baddest best: the always impressive Sheer Heart Attack leading the way, then comes the anthemic trilogy of We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, and an embroidered God Save The Queen, which then leaves us all wanting for more as the music, and the band, fade off into the night time darkness.

Official Purchase Link