“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. … Queen.
From humble beginning to house-rocking heroes, Queen’s journey to stardom is the stuff of legend.
Alright, it has to be said that Queen is my all-time favourite band and my DVD collection would not be complete without something of them in it. Actually, this three-part documentary has never made it onto DVD, the copies I have were a brilliantly surprising birthday gift from my mum and dad. We have the documentary on VHS (because we are so hardcore) and then, for my 21st, they got the tapes transferred onto DVD for me to have in my own collection. That, right there, is an example of no greater love!
Because, by nature, I’m a little antisocial, the documentaries that are being made about what’s really going out there in the world do not generally interest me. They should, but they don’t. To show my true film tragicness and quote Robert Downey Jr. in Sherlock Holmes: “there is absolutely nothing of interest to me, out there, on earth, at all”. But the story of Queen is something to be intrigued in.
From humble beginnings to house-rocking heroes, Queen’s rise to stardom is a brilliant story, the stuff of legend. Volume 1 of The Magic Years talks about Queen’s beginning, it’s slow rise to fame, their music videos, and their escapades in the recording studio.
As well as general facts such as the boys meeting at college and being cheated by their first manager and everything, the doco also regales audiences with all these brilliant, trivial anecdotes not just from the band members themselves, but from all these other people; musicians, producers, managers, roadies, alike. It’s bloody fantastic, and some of the stories are just classic.
The doco is made up of both past and present interviews from musicians, producers, crewmen, and everything. There is even some brilliant black and white footage that really shows how much times has passed and, for Mercury fans like me, hammers home the emotional truth that the world is no longer as bright.
Featuring Freddie Mercury, Roger Taylor, Brian May, John Deacon, Peter Ustinov, Bob Geldof, David Lee Roth, John Taylor, Divine, Mike Peters, Steve Harley, Steven Berkoff, John Entwhistle, Jeff Beck, Richard Branson, R. Parfitt, Francis Rossi, Jackie Stewart, Gary Langham, Elton John, Billy Squire, Mel Smith, Paul McCartney, Status Quo, John Reid, Samantha Fox, Dave Stewart, and Christopher Lambert, Queen: Magic Years Volume 1 is a fantastic documentary filled with brilliant interviews and footage that tells tales of hardship, abuse, dreams, music, and genius. I love Queen and I love this doco.
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