Queen TV performances (partially lost appearances by British band on various shows; 1974-1986)
Image of a lost Queen performance of Killer Queen on TopPop, the Dutch version of Top of The Pops
Status: Partially Lost
Queen is a band from London formed in 1970 with the lineup of John Deacon, Brian May, Freddie Mercury, and Roger Taylor. They are known by hits including Bohemian Rhapsody, Another one Bites the Dust, Killer Queen, We Will Rock You, We are the Champions, and many other unforgettable songs. They were recently brought to more fame thanks to the motion picture Bohemian Rhapsody, which is built by the band's history. Lead singer of the band, Freddie Mercury, passed away after a long fight against AIDS on November 24th, 1991, one day after announcing his illness publicly.
Queen on Top of the Pops
Queen was invited to perform their song, Seven Seas of Rhye, after David Bowie cancelled his own performance. They performed in the Weather studio on February 21, 1974.[1] Often times, they were on tours while Top of the Pops performances was recorded, which made it rare for Queen to appear in person as they would usually just play the promo video.
Song | Air Date | Status | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
Seven Seas of Rhye | Feb 21st, 1974 | Found | Footage is mostly in colour though some bits remain in black in white. |
Seven Seas of Rhye | Mar 14th, 1974 | Found | Video is mostly in black and white. |
Seven Seas of Rhye | Mar 28th, 1974 | Partially Found | Footage is mostly in colour. |
Killer Queen | Oct 11th, 1974 | Found | Full footage is in colour. |
Killer Queen | Oct 7th or 27th, 1974 | Found | Footage is in full colour but was unfortunately cropped to 16:9, it seams to be a different take from the previous performance and has some differences (Freddie's hands, Roger's drumstick flips, etc). |
Killer Queen | Nov 7th or 11th, 1974 | Partially Lost | Opening is badly degraded (possibly done on purpose). |
Killer Queen (Avro's TopPop) | Nov 1974 (unknown) | Found | Officially released in documentaries and on TopPop compilation DVDs. |
Killer Queen (Avro's TopPop) | Unknown | Lost | Same outfits worn, performed on chroma key stage. Images |
Now I'm Here | Jan 16th, 1975 | Partially Lost | Footage is a merge from a documentary, a cellphone recording at exhibition, and recent VHS rip snippet, uses unreleased mix of song. |
Somebody To Love (Avro's TopPop, Penny De Jager's dance group) | Nov 1976 (unknown) | Found | Promo never got an official release. |
Somebody To Love (Legs & Co.) | Nov 1976 (unknown) | Partially Found | VHS home recording of the original airing. |
Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy | June 14th or 16th, 1977 | Found | Remastered BBC Broadcast. |
Another One Bites The Dust (Legs & Co.) | Oct 1980 (unknown) | Found | Remastered BBC broadcast. |
Under Pressure (Zoo) | Oct or Nov 19th, 1981 | Found | Remastered BBC Broadcast. |
Las Palabras De Amor | June 17th. 1982 | Found | BBC Four Rebroadcast. |
Availability
The tapes from '74-'75 supposedly were wiped from BBC's archives, despite clips of some performances being shown in some documentaries such as Days of our Lives and From Rags to Rhapsody. The majority of the Seven Seas of Rhye footage is from an extra feature on the Blu-ray release of the documentary, Days of our lives, which makes it pretty likely that the footage of those three performances exists somewhere. One user from the Missing Episodes forum claims to have a copy of the Now I'm Here performance, but hasn't released it. The owner of a site dedicated to archiving TOTP content randomly disappeared around July 2014,[4] Deleting his website which hosted high quality snippets of each Seven Seas of Rhye performance, which likely means he has the full tapes (he also has the Now I'm here performance[5]). Some recent discoveries shows a blog spot that has a copy of the episode featuring the third Killer Queen performance, and a YouTube channel named gary jbrum has a copy and released 15 seconds of it, some of it was not in previous copies. He is not willing to release any more it seems, however.[6]
References
- ↑ Documentary clip mentioning the first TOTP performance.
- ↑ List of promo videos including TOTP performances.
- ↑ Archive of Queen promo videos including the TOTP videos with dates.
- ↑ 2nd post by pittrek explains that the site owner disappeared while trying to sell the tapes to multiple interested groups.
- ↑ Forum post with bottom comment listing each performance of Queen the site owner has.
- ↑ Comment from Gary where he states he will not be uploading the full version.