Apparently the documentary dvd in the box set is called 'Queen : The American Dream', and is described as 'created from backstage material filmed during Queen’s 1977 USA News of the World tour'.
The BBC4 documentary to be screened on Friday 4th November is called 'Queen: Rock the World'. The BBC blurb describes it as follows...
"Behind-the-scenes archive documentary following Queen's Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon as they record their sixth album News of the World and embark on a groundbreaking tour of North America.
By 1977, Queen had become a major headlining act in the UK, releasing chart-topping albums and singles as well as playing sell-out concerts in all the country's major venues. However, they were facing an increasingly hostile music press, who had a new favourite in punk and had turned against the elaborate, multi-layered recording techniques that had become the hallmark of the band's previous albums.
But an unfazed Queen had their sights set on greater things. As the band announced plans to record their next album, the expectation was it would be another production extravaganza, but Freddie, Brian, Roger and John already had other ideas. News of the World showcased them at their most raw, simple and best, returning to their roots as a live act. With a self-imposed limit on studio time and produced entirely on their own for the first time, this stripped-back album took the fans and press by surprise and demonstrated Queen's ability to transcend fashions. It was to prove a seminal moment in the band's history.
At the time, BBC music presenter Bob Harris was given exclusive and extensive access to the band to cover this period. Conducting insightful interviews with all four band members as well as filming them at work in the studio as they were planning and rehearsing their forthcoming North American Tour, and then following them as they performed across the US, Bob captured a band attempting to replicate their huge domestic success on the global stage. Curiously, the documentary he set out to make was never completed, and the footage lay unused in the archive until now.
To mark the 40th anniversary of the release of the News of the World album, the footage has now been carefully restored and revisited to compile this hour-long portrait of a group setting out to take the next step on their remarkable journey to becoming one of the biggest bands on the planet. Armed with an array of new songs, including the monster hits We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions, Queen dazzled the American audience and laid the foundations of a relationship that endures to this very day.
Coming full circle, this film is bookended by footage shot in the summer of 2017 as Brian May and Roger Taylor took Queen back to the US with Adam Lambert as lead singer. Revisiting many of the cities they had performed in 40 years previously and including many of the songs from that 1977 album, they prove that despite the tragic loss of Freddie Mercury over 25 years ago, Queen can still rock the world.
So it may be a different beast or is it just a different title to try and avoid potential loss of sales?
It could be another doc but i doubt it. If it's a good move i don't know but if it's the same doc than that way the boxset becomes less and less interesting to buy.
Also 3 of the RAW sessions tracks have been revealed. Champions and Rock on Queenonline and tomorrow All Dead on the radio.
I knew this would be shown on BBC 4, it's the main reason I haven't bothered ordering it. Why they couldn't do a 1hr edit for TV and a 2hr box set DVD is beyond me. Bring back DoRo!
People that went the Freddie party in Montreux have said that it doesn't have a narrator, but if you look in the BBC program page, it credits Bob Harris as the narrator. Maybe that's the difference between the DVD and the TV version.
Narrator - interviewer? We know he has a presence in the original footage and will probably do an intro a la Hammersmith '75 BBC4 screening.
If it is different, they've made an instantly bootlegable item.
I'd suggest that the difference will probably be the AL bookends if there are any at all. Still wondering why that was considered appropriate on a reissue. Sure it puts it in context - but too much like one of those docs where you see the band nowadays after an hour of glorious vintage material still flogging a dead horse.
What we'll get from the TV broadcast is the same as the DVD version, but via some carefully worded press releases they'll try to make out that they're different so we still buy the box set....only to find out once that arrives that there's no difference.
dysan, re:
>but too much like one of those docs where you see the band nowadays after an hour of glorious vintage material still flogging a dead horse.
A bit like watching "The Kids Are Alright" and following it with "Tommy Live At The Royal Albert Hall"; chalk and cheese.
Maybe Simon Lupton changed the title after i suggested to him that he make a seperate documentary focusing on Queen's hot and cold relationship with the US :P
The version at the event did not have Bob Harris as a narrator...maybe they've changed it since then to include some of the NOTW rare boxset stuff...as if my memory serves me correctly the documentary had none of the rare demos like the such we've been hearing lately.
Nope. All footage was 1977. The only thing not in the documentary which wasn't from that year were a few audio excerpts of Brian and Roger commenting on a few things. Some bits we have heard before in other docs, most were outtakes not used in other docs. But overall, it's all 1977 footage and audio.
The doc we saw was shown on September 2nd....so maybe they hadn't edited the QAL footage yet - but my bet would be they are trying to make this a more commerical endeavour. So to keep the brand alive it's probably best to always pop a bit of QAL on the end somewhere.
question for all the fans who have by now got their NOTW boxsets: is the documentary any different than the one shown on BBC4? thanks to anyone who replies
Kuijpy wrote:
It was a good bonus DVD for Houston ;)
Thanks for the answer. If you mentioned the Houston DVD from Faroukqch, the bonus video is "Queen Rock The World" documentary which aired on BBC.
I meant the DVD which is part of the News of The World 40th anniversary release...