This week’s episode of Queen The Greatest Live features brand new interviews with Sir Brian May and Roger Taylor sharing how their live experience as a band has changed across over half a century of touring.
The guitarist confessed of touring as Queen and Adam Lambert in the 21st century: “The reaction is very similar to what it used to be.
“The biggest difference is mobile phones, because in the old days people didn’t have that stuff and they would just be there, their whole selves interacting in mind and body and eyes and ears. It’s not like that now.
“Everybody has this urge to kind of immortalise stuff.
“So, when you look out, you see almost as many mobile phones as people, which is weird.”
Sir Brian continued: “There are knock-on effects from that because there’s nothing secret anymore. We used to go from town to town and audiences would have no idea what we were going to do.
“So everything was new and exciting. Nowadays people will have filmed it. It’ll be on YouTube, it will be on Instagram, and people will know what you did last night.”
Nevertheless, the Queen legend shared how he helps nudge fans into enjoying being in the moment of the live show.
Sir Brian added: “When I do Love Of My Life, I ask them to put their [mobile phone] lights on. People don’t necessarily twig it, but what I’m saying is you’re not using your phone to film at this point. You’re actually using the light, so you can’t be filming at the same time.
“I think that’s partly why the moment is so powerful, because people suddenly go, ‘Oh, there’s nothing else except the performance’.”
