Queen’s ‘The Greatest Live’ series continues with another example of Queen kicking things off in style with an incredible opening number, “One Vision.”
When Queen undertook their now legendary ‘Magic Tour’ of European stadiums in 1986, the opening number was going to have to be something very big to captivate the enormous crowds. After all, Freddie Mercury had promised for their return to Wembley and their home town for the first time since Live Aid ’85: “We are going to play on the biggest stage ever built at Wembley, with the greatest lightshow ever seen.
And of course, in true Queen fashion, the band did not disappoint…
Concluding our look back at some of Queen’s most iconic opening numbers, we now revisit the legendary ‘Magic Tour’ of 1986 to see how the band kicked off those massive stadium shows in style with “One Vision.” Episode 8 of ‘Queen The Greatest Live’ captures the thrill of the front row at Wembley Stadium, as the band hit the stage that summer armed with a new song that represented one of the most rocking moments in their catalogue. You can watch it in full below.
Released as a UK No. 7 single in November 1985 and featured on the following year’s A Kind of Magic album, “One Vision” was a close-knit collaboration between all four band members. Roger Taylor led the lyric-writing (the drummer admitting the ‘I had a dream’ bridge section was “half-nicked off Martin Luther King’s famous speech”), while the final cut featured Brian May’s three-part guitar harmonies and the Freddie Mercury vocal ad-libs that were woven into a swirling sonic tapestry by producer Reinhold Mack.
As the opener to their Wembley Stadium shows of July 11 and 12, 1986, the band took “One Vision” to the next level from the studio original, with Brian adding guitar pyrotechnics and Freddie revving up the 144,000-strong crowd in the iconic military-style yellow jacket created by his designer and friend Diana Moseley. Almost four decades later, it’s still a stone cold classic Queen moment.
“One Vision” would be the show opener every night throughout their 26-date 1986 UK and European tour including at what would be the band’s very last show ever, at Knebworth Park, UK, on August 9.
Watch every episode of Queen’s ‘The Greatest Live’ series on the band’s official YouTube channel.