I think his voice condition was amazing compare to other Queen's tour, he hit most of the high notes accurately. It makes me so confused when everyone said his throat condition was bad in LiveAid, is it an official information or just a romour?
He had a throat infection ( I believe) leading up to Live Aid and was advised not to perform.
I imagine that the set being very short and the pure adrenaline rush of being there would have all helped. Had that been a full two hour show it may have been a different story vocally.
From what I understand from reading online, he suffered a vocal hemorrhage sometime during the 1985 Works Tour and was on doctor ordered voice rest once the tour ended.
For those unaware a vocal hemorrhage is when your actual vocal chords, the little vibrating folds in your throat, begin to bleed due to overuse or misuse. This, plus the vocal nodules he already had, is a major risk to a singer.
This happened to Frank Sinatra in the 1950s as well. He was told by his doctor not to sing/speak for a whole month otherwise he may never sing again.
That said, given he had almost 2 full months of no recording and no touring, he was likely always going to be "okay" for that one show, it was probably more of an assurance thing because it could potentially lengthen the healing process to go all out like that, even if its only once.
Given how good he sounded during rehearsals and everything though, I somewhat doubt the doctor ever said "DON'T PERFORM LIVE AID". I think it's more likely people are falsely taking the vocal hemorrhage "voice rest" that the doctor had ordered and mistakenly applying it to Live Aid as well since they were somewhat close in time.
If you listen carefully you can kind of hear his voice start getting weak during "WATC" but God bless him for going for just about every note at that show.
Do we know the source of this? I've heard people like Paul Gambaccini say it, but I also feel like I've heard Peter Freestone say he had no recollection of it (possible in Gregsynth's interview with him, or am I making that up?).
I'm not convinced it's true. As people have pointed out, Freddie sounds fantastic at Live Aid. He also sounds brilliant in the rehearsals, and hits a tonne of high notes during them, which would be a weird thing to do if you were nursing an infection.
Sounds like the typical myth, as in 'he was brilliant *even though* he wasn't feeling well; one could only imagine how well he would've sounded in that case!'
The sort of thing that many people want to believe, so once they hear it or read it they spread it and add their own bits, even if there's no single reliable source to begin with.
Just like the 180 vocal overdubs on Bohemian Rhapsody, the 14 times Everett played it, Frederick playing full renditions of radio songs after hearing them once, etc.
what's the point of this question? i watch the performance and i think, hey, he sang pretty well... not... hmm, something's not right... poor freddie endured 20 minutes of vocal pain.... he looked like he was having the time of his fucking life up there. lol i lost my train of thought... wish i still had my delete button.... what's the point of this question?
I agree with you Jimmy this has all been covered before,i know it was someone new to the site.But if he had looked he would have found the answer on the many discussion posts.I to have been guilty of opening a new post which has already been covered a thousand times before,
Freddie suffered numerous vocal problems, no doubt due to his heavy touring schedule and the fact that he pushed his voice to the limits, in the days before vocal coaching for rock singers was even thought of.
He sounded fantastic at Live Aid though, and whatever, there may have been some things went wrong - in fact there undoubtedly were some things that went wrong - but who actually cares? His performance was mind blowing.
He probably sounds so good BECAUSE they'd stopped touring for 2 years before hand. The break up of Queen in 1983 before Freddie left them for the party lifestyle in Munich before begging for his job back just before Live Aid after between 2 and 12 years of inactivity as Queen set him up well to give that performance. Sorry... I mean the 5 weeks they took off after a gigantic world tour which Brian May seems to have forgotten about.
miraclesteinway wrote:
He probably sounds so good BECAUSE they'd stopped touring for 2 years before hand. The break up of Queen in 1983 before Freddie left them for the party lifestyle in Munich before begging for his job back just before Live Aid after between 2 and 12 years of inactivity as Queen set him up well to give that performance. Sorry... I mean the 5 weeks they took off after a gigantic world tour which Brian May seems to have forgotten about.
miraclesteinway wrote:
Freddie suffered numerous vocal problems, no doubt due to his heavy touring schedule and the fact that he pushed his voice to the limits, in the days before vocal coaching for rock singers was even thought of.
He sounded fantastic at Live Aid though, and whatever, there may have been some things went wrong - in fact there undoubtedly were some things that went wrong - but who actually cares? His performance was mind blowing.
He probably sounds so good BECAUSE they'd stopped touring for 2 years before hand. The break up of Queen in 1983 before Freddie left them for the party lifestyle in Munich before begging for his job back just before Live Aid after between 2 and 12 years of inactivity as Queen set him up well to give that performance. Sorry... I mean the 5 weeks they took off after a gigantic world tour which Brian May seems to have forgotten about.
this is top 10 material. first rate. i read your first two paragraphs and the third one just came out of nowhere. lol. Freddie won an Oscar for his performance at LiveAid... it was all an act.