Freddie Mercury is considered by many the best singer of all time. Unfortunately he left us too soon in 1991 at the age of 45. However, his last live concert with Queen was 6 years before in August 9, 1986 at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire. The fans paid £14.50 to £16 for the tickets and could see they playing many classic songs of the album Kind Of Magic, besides the opening acts Big Country and Status Quo.
The setlist of Queen’s last concert with Freddie Mercury:
- One Vision
- Tie Your Mother Down
- In the Lap of the Gods… Revisited
- Seven Seas of Rhye
- Tear It Up
- A Kind of Magic
- Ay‐Oh
- Under Pressure
- Another One Bites the Dust
- Who Wants to Live Forever
- I Want to Break Free
- Impromptu
- Guitar Solo (w/parts of “Get Down, Make… more )
- Now I’m Here
- Love of My Life
- Is This the World We Created…?
- (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care (Elvis Presley cover)
- Hello Mary Lou (Gene Pitney cover)
- Tutti Frutti (Little Richard cover)
- Bohemian Rhapsody
- Hammer to Fall
- Crazy Little Thing Called Love
- Radio Ga Ga
- We Will Rock You
- Friends Will Be Friends
- We Are the Champions
Watch the video of the last concert Freddie Mercury did with Queen:
Loudwire interviewed some fans that were at the concert that day, many of them lamenting that the performance was not officially filmed:
Henry Lytton-Cobbold went to the concert at the age of 20, said: “Can you believe that on Freddie Mercury’s last concert, the great showman, no one actually pressed record? There’s a Dutch bootleg of somebody filming a screen at the back of the audience for the whole show. So there’s a record of it, but no proper film.”
The band’s roadie, Peter Hince also talked about what happened in the backstage that day, recalling that John Deacon smashed his bass into his amp:
“He wasn’t p****d off at his gear, he wasn’t p****d off at me, I don’t know what it was. John acted strangely on that tour. He was doing stuff that was out of character.”
Besides that, a 21-year-old fan of the band was stabbed in the crowd and the paramedics weren’t able to save his life. The news was shared with the band only after the show.
And what’s more, despite a mammoth applause and satisfying ending with the encore of God Save the Queen, the concert was later remembered for something very different. Brian May stated in interviews over the years that he didn’t knew it would be Freddie’s last concert.