Queen kicked off 1985, a relatively light year of touring by their standards, with two enormous headlining shows at the prestigious Rock In Rio festival in Brazil; an estimated crowd of between 250,000 to 300,000 over two nights witnessed the spectacle and edited highlights were broadcast throughout South America to over 200 million people.

The success of The Works album saw the band continuing to tour into 1985 with nine shows in Australia and New Zealand, and then back to their beloved Japan for what would be their final shows in these regions with Freddie.

Often labelled the ‘Greatest Live Performance Ever’, Queen capped off their live appearances for the year by stealing the show at Live Aid. The medley of hits that they finely tuned for their allotted 19 minutes on stage at Wembley Stadium on July 13th was a triumph of colossal proportions. It both revitalised the band and gained them tens of thousands of new fans across the globe, and it set them up for their triumphant Magic Tour of Europe in 1986.

Text taken from the forthcoming revised and updated edition of Queen Live: A Concert Documentary.