Recorded in 1981 and recently featured as a record-breaking digitally restored IMAX concert film, this landmark moment in the band’s history is now being released as both double Blu-Ray and double 4K Ultra High Definition packages, plus double CD and triple vinyl packages.
Queen’s return to the Montreal Forum came after almost two years of touring, with the Canadian shows marking the final of The Game tour in support of their 1980 album of the same name.
“Montreal is one of our favourite cities, it’s a great audience there, very full of energy,” says Brian May. “We’d played this particular venue, The Forum, several times before, and it was always full of really enthusiastic people giving us a lot of energy back.”
The original concerts, which took place on November 24 and 25, 1981, were filmed by director Saul Swimmer, who planned to shoot them using state-of-the-art Double Anamorphic 35mm footage, which allowed it to be projected on a gigantic, five-storey high screen.
For the first time ever, the concert will be presented in both full-frame and widescreen formats. The full-screen aspect ratio echoing more closely the way the film was originally shot, and the widescreen being a carefully cropped alternative presentation to fill the 16:9 ratio. In addition, the 4K Ultra High Definition release also has SDR / HDR dynamic range options.
“I can’t think of any other record of our shows in which you are so intimately in contact with Freddie,” adds May. “You can almost see everything that’s going on in his head, you can see his anger, you can see his insecurity, you can see his consciousness that he can move people right to the back of the auditorium. To me, it‘s very emotional. Oh my God, he was good.”
“It's fascinating to now realize how free we were on stage in 1981,” reflects Roger Taylor. “It's a four-piece, just the four of us in Queen, and to see Freddie. It's like being on stage with the band because the cameras are very high quality for the time. I've never seen anything that makes you feel quite so involved with the performance.”
The enduring power of “Queen Rock Montreal” was confirmed earlier in 2024, when a digitally remastered version of the film released exclusively in IMAX theatres became the most successful IMAX concert film ever, reaching a record-breaking £5.5M globally and surpassing Talking Heads’ “Stop Making Sense” and The Beatles’ “Get Back” documentaries.
Pick up some Queen for your collection here.
See also:
Queen share final episode of The Greatest Live
Queen share Freddie Mercury tributes on The Greatest Live
Queen revisit The Days Of Our Lives on The Greatest Live
Queen revive fan favorite on The Greatest Live
Search Queen at hennemusic
