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The latest in the band’s on-going archival series again revisits the band’s sensational and record-breaking ‘Magic Tour’ of 1986.

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This week’s episode of Queen’s archival video series, ‘The Greatest’ again revisits the band’s sensational and record-breaking ‘Magic Tour’ of 1986. You can watch it in full below.

Having already blazed a trail with 14 sold out shows around the UK and Europe setting milestones along the way , Queen returned to London in July 1986 to play two nights at London’s 72,000 capacity Wembley Stadium – the site of their extraordinary and historic performance at Live Aid the previous year.

Yet despite the band having reached an all-time high popularity, they weren’t taking it for granted that their first home ground shows since Live Aid would sell out…

Brian May: “We’ve been away a long time and tickets will go on sale for Wembley on Friday. And it’s always a time when you sort of go ‘I wonder what is out there? I wonder if they still do want to see us?’ You never know. We’ll only know once the applications start coming in.”

However, the close on 150,000 tickets for the ‘Magic Tour’ shows on sale sold out in a matter of hours, and these memorable nights were captured on camera and remain one of Queen’s best-loved live shows to this very day.

Roger Taylor: “I think Wembley was a tough gig, because of the actual physical size of it. You’d better go down well there, you don’t want a quiet audience. I’ve seen people die there, because you won’t hear them. If it’s a ripple, a ripple really won’t register. So you need a roar. They call it the Wembley Roar. And it was OK for us. You knew you were going to have to work quite hard at Wembley.”

Then as Queen’s ‘Magic Tour’ hit the road once again, a new adventure awaited them…

[Interviewer]: “I think there’s only one country you’ve never been to before?”

Roger Taylor: “That’d be Hungary. Yeah. Budapest.”

[Interviewer] “So that is new ground?”

Roger Taylor: “It’s great, yeah. We’re very excited about that. There are people from all over the Iron Curtain bloc coming. They’re selling tickets in…or whatever they do over there. Do they sell tickets?”

[Interviewer] “I presume so?”

Roger Taylor: “Or give them away? I don’t know, I don’t know. Whatever they do, people are coming from Poland and Czechoslovakia, and a lot of the Eastern Bloc, which is very exciting. ‘Cos the Russians would never let us in.”

Freddie Mercury: “I like doing places that we’ve never done before, to see how they’re going to react. Some places that we’ve already been before, we have a certain idea of how, what they’re going to do. But this is going to be great. It’s going to be great to see if they do the same things, if they have seen the films and whether they’re going to do the same things for “Radio Ga Ga” and things like that. That should be very interesting, a good challenge.”

Making history as the first artists to ever perform anywhere behind the Iron Curtain, the band’s July 27 show on their ‘Magic Tour’ would be played to an audience of over 80,000. Filmed using nearly every available 35m television camera available in the country the concert would go on to further make history by being broadcast at the end of the year across the Communist Bloc including Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Yugoslavia as well as being shown in 59 Hungarian cinemas on New Year’s Day 1987.

Drawing to a close with only dates still to be played in France and Spain, the overwhelming demand back in the UK prompted promoters to hastily add one last massive show to the ‘Magic Tout’ schedule – at the famous Knebworth Park, where the band would end their tour performing an open air show before an audience variously estimated at between 160,000 and 200,000. Since the start of the tour, June 7, Queen would end up playing to a fraction over one million people.

Brian May: “We always believed that we had something special, and that we could do anything that anyone else did. That’s the kind of thing, that’s the kind of belief that kept us going in the early days. But I don’t think we quite believed what would happen. I don’t think we even knew what was possible.”

Jim Beach, Manager: “I think that in some form or another the music will always continue now, I think they’ve reached that status that their music will be remembered. How much longer they record…goodness only knows. Nobody knows whether Mick Jagger will be singing when he’s 65, or Queen will be performing as Queen. I think that the Queen structure will continue on, and they will continue to make music. How it will be…nobody ever knows that, really.”

Freddie Mercury: “We’re the only sort of, the four Grand Dames that have actually stuck it together.”

John Deacon: “Yes you do ask how long it’s going to go on really, and we’ve been doing it a long time now, and I don’t know. If I could tell the future, life would be quite boring I think.”

Signing off at the close of the band’s August 9, 1986, Knebworth concert, Freddie thanked the crowd saying: “Thank you lovely people, you’ve been a wonderful audience. God bless you. God bless you, goodnight, thank you.”

No one knew this yet, but this was to be Queen’s last-ever public performance with Freddie.

Watch every episode of ‘The Greatest’ on Queen’s official YouTube channel .

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Queen The Greatest Episode 34: Queen 1986 The Magic Tour Part 2

Queen The Greatest Episode 34: Queen 1986: The Magic Tour – Part 2

“Queen The Greatest”: a celebration of 50 of the greatest moments from the Queen story so far. A 50-week YouTube series celebrating key moments in Queen’s history reminding us why Queen and their music continue to be loved across the world

Continuing our look at Queen’s record breaking Magic Tour. As the tour reaches its climax, and within just a few short weeks of each other, Queen play three of their most memorable and iconic gigs.

“We always believed that we had something special, and that we could do anything that anyone else did. That’s the kind of belief that kept us going in the early days. But I don’t think we quite believed what would happen. I don’t think we even knew what was possible.” Brian May.

“I think that in some form or another the music will always continue now, I think they’ve reached that status. Nobody knows whether Mick Jagger will be singing when he’s 65, or Queen will be performing as Queen. I think that the Queen structure will continue on, and they will continue to make music.” Jim Beach, Manager.

Queen The Greatest returns this week with a second instalment revisiting the band’s sensational and record-breaking 1986 Magic Tour.

Having already blazed a trail with 14 sold out shows around the UK and Europe setting milestones along the way, Queen returned to London in July 1986 to play two nights at London’s 72,000 capacity Wembley Stadium – the site of their extraordinary and historic performance at Live Aid the previous year.

Yet despite the band having reached an all-time high popularity, they weren’t taking it for granted that their first home ground shows since Live Aid would sell out…

Brian May: “We’ve been away a long time and tickets will go on sale for Wembley on Friday. And it’s always a time when you sort of go ‘I wonder what is out there? I wonder if they still do want to see us?’ You never know. We’ll only know once the applications start coming in.”

The close on 150,000 tickets on sale sold out in a matter of hours, and these memorable nights were captured on camera and remain one of Queen’s best-loved live shows to this very day.

Roger Taylor: “I think Wembley was a tough gig, because of the actual physical size of it. You’d better go down well there, you don’t want a quiet audience. I’ve seen people die there, because you won’t hear them. If it’s a ripple, a ripple really won’t register. So you need a roar. They call it the Wembley Roar. And it was OK for us. You knew you were going to have to work quite hard at Wembley.”

Then as Queen hit the road once again, a new adventure awaited them…

[Interviewer]: “I think there’s only one country you’ve never been to before?”

Roger Taylor: “That’d be Hungary. Yeah. Budapest.”

[Interviewer] “So that is new ground?”

Roger Taylor: “It’s great, yeah. We’re very excited about that. There are people from all over the Iron Curtain bloc coming. They’re selling tickets in…or whatever they do over there. Do they sell tickets?”

[Interviewer] “I presume so?”

Roger Taylor: “Or give them away? I don’t know, I don’t know. Whatever they do, people are coming from Poland and Czechoslovakia, and a lot of the Eastern Bloc, which is very exciting. ‘Cos the Russians would never let us in.”

Freddie Mercury: “I like doing places that we’ve never done before, to see how they’re going to react. Some places that we’ve already been before, we have a certain idea of how, what they’re going to do. But this is going to be great. It’s going to be great to see if they do the same things, if they have seen the films and whether they’re going to do the same things for Radio Ga Ga and things like that. That should be very interesting, a good challenge.”

Making history as the first artists to ever perform anywhere behind the Iron Curtain, the band’s July 27 show would be played to an audience of over 80,000. Filmed using nearly every available 35m television camera available in the country the concert would go on to further make history by being broadcast at the end of the year across the Communist Bloc including Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Yugoslavia as well as being shown in 59 Hungarian cinemas on New Year’s Day 1987.

Drawing to a close with only dates still to be played in France and Spain, the overwhelming demand back in the UK prompted promoters to hastily add one last massive show to the schedule – at the famous Knebworth Park, where the band would end their tour performing an open air show before an audience variously estimated at between 160,000 and 200,000. Since the start of the tour, June 7, Queen would end up playing to a fraction over one million people.

Brian May: “We always believed that we had something special and that we could do anything that anyone else did. That’s the kind of thing, that’s the kind of belief that kept us going in the early days. But I don’t think we quite believed what would happen. I don’t think we even knew what was possible.”

Jim Beach, Manager: “I think that in some form or another the music will always continue now, I think they’ve reached that status that their music will be remembered. How much longer they record…goodness only knows. Nobody knows whether Mick Jagger will be singing when he’s 65, or Queen will be performing as Queen. I think that the Queen structure will continue on, and they will continue to make music. How it will be…nobody ever knows that, really.”

Freddie Mercury: “ We’re the only sort of, the four Grand Dames that have actually stuck it together.”

John Deacon: “Yes you do ask how long it’s going to go on really, and we’ve been doing it a long time now, and I don’t know. If I could tell the future, life would be quite boring I think.”

Signing off at the close of the band’s August 9, 1986, Knebworth concert, Freddie thanked the crowd saying: “Thank you lovely people, you’ve been a wonderful audience. God bless you. God bless you, goodnight, thank you.”

No one knew this yet, but this was to be Queen’s last-ever public performance with Freddie.

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Watch: Queen The Greatest Live: A Kind Of Magic (Episode 39)

“Queen The Greatest Live” The Greatest series returns with a year-long celebration of Queen Live. A 50-week YouTube series going behind the scenes to reveal what goes into creating a Queen show, featuring moments from iconic performances and demonstrating why the band is regarded as the ultimate live act.

Queen The Greatest Live: A Kind Of Magic (Episode 39)

Queen pull out a classic from the Highlander soundtrack as they rock Wembley Stadium in the summer of 1986. It’s another triumphant moment in front of a home crowd – not to mention some very unruly inflatable friends. 

Queen might have conquered stadiums around the world, but in the mid-’80s, Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon and Roger Taylor almost seemed like London’s Wembley Stadium’s house band. While 1985’s Live Aid gave them just 21 minutes to steal the show, for the following summer’s Magic Tour, the band returned to the North London venue for two headliner nights– and had a few more tricks up their sleeve. 

Written by Roger Taylor, A Kind Of Magic had first featured on the soundtrack to the 1986 fantasy movie Highlander (the band also contributed fan-favourites including Who Wants To Live Forever and Princes Of The Universe). But while Brian once described the original’s pulsing synth-rock as “quite lugubrious and heavy”, Freddie developed a funkier and lighter-footed treatment that would be re-recorded with producer David Richards.

“Originally, A Kind Of Magic was used at the end of the movie, over the closing credits,” Roger recalled. “It was a grander concept with a much more broken-up tempo. Freddie really believed in this song and we reworked it as a single.”

Hitting UK#3 as the third single and title track of 1986’s A Kind Of Magic album, the song was already an anthem when Queen arrived at the national stadium that July for two back-to-back performances. “It became very popular onstage,” Roger reflected, “and when we did it on the 1986 Magic Tour, which was our last ever tour, it used to go down incredibly well.”

This week’s archive footage from Wembley proves just how quickly A Kind Of Magic had joined Queen’s canon of classics, as Freddie leads the 72,000-strong audience in a mass singalong of the song’s many memorable lines (including the pop-culture perennial, ‘There can be only one’). Meanwhile, in a surreal twist, the band are watched by their own giant inflatable avatars based on the cartoons from the A Kind Of Magic album sleeve – with the ‘Freddie’ balloon escaping the stadium and apparently found the next day by a somewhat startled lady half-deflated in her garden several miles away!                 

Next week : Queen The Greatest Live – Stone Cold Crazy

Photo: © Queen Productions

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Starring Dominic Warren

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Nicki Minaj brings Pink Friday 2 World Tour to Birmingham

B IRMINGHAM, Ala. ( WBRC ) - The Queen of Hip-Hop Nicki Minaj announced 22 additional stops for the second leg of her Pink Friday 2 World Tour which includes a stop in the Magic City.

The Super Bass singer is set to hit the stage at BJCC’s Legacy Arena on September 15. Fans can expect a vibrant production and songs from Minaj’s new album Pink Friday 2 . With over 50 arena shows, this makes for the rapper’s highest selling tour to date.

Minaj will close the show in her hometown of Queens after a total of 80 shows have been played across the world.

Ticket sales for the Birmingham show begin on May 31 at 9 a.m.

Pink Friday 2 World Tour second leg dates include:

• September 4 – Philadelphia, PA
• September 6 – Pittsburgh, PA
• September 7 – New York, NY
• September 9 – Washington, DC
• September 12 – Buffalo, NY
• September 13 – Cleveland, OH
• September 15 – Birmingham, AL
• September 17 – Dallas, TX
• September 18 – San Antonio, TX
• September 21 – Los Angeles, CA
• September 22 – Los Angeles, CA
• September 23 – San Francisco, CA
• September 26 – San Diego, CA
• September 28 – Las Vegas, NV
• October 1 – Kansas City, MO
• October 2 – St. Louis, MO
• October 4 – Jacksonville, FL
• October 5 – Tampa, FL
• October 6 – Miami, FL
• October 8 – Raleigh, NC
• October 9 – Columbia, SC
• October 11 – Queens, NY

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Hip hop icon Nicki Minaj to bring ‘Pink Friday 2′ tour to Frost Bank Center this September

Tour stops in san antonio on sept. 18; will include ‘pink friday 2′ music, classics.

Ivan Herrera , Digital Journalist

SAN ANTONIO – The QUEEN of hip hop is bringing the magic of Gag City to San Antonio this September after adding a new North America leg to her tour for a total of 22 additional shows.

Nicki Minaj Presents: “Pink Friday 2 World Tour” will stop at the Frost Bank Center on Sept. 18. The new leg of the tour will bring new performances to Los Angeles, Miami, and St. Louis, as well as a return to Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., and many other cities.

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“The tour features an incredibly vibrant stage production where Minaj performs hits from her critically acclaimed new album Pink Friday 2 including trailblazing pop culture favorites ‘FTCU,’ ‘Everybody,’ and the platinum-certified lead single ‘Super Freaky Girl’ which hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100,” a news release said.

The tour holds the record for the highest-grossing rap tour by a woman and is among the top 10 highest-grossing rap tours by any rapper of all time.

If the Barbz want to hear some Minaj faves, the tour’s set list also includes “Anaconda,” “Super Bass,” “Starships,” and “Chun-Li.”

To score your tickets and “Have this moment for life,” log onto the Frost Bank Center website or Ticketmaster.com at 9 a.m. on Friday, May 31, for general ticket sales. Or access the presale by signing up for the Frost Bank Center’s All Access Newsletter and selecting the “Hip Hop” genre.

Copyright 2024 by KSAT - All rights reserved.

About the Author

Ivan herrera.

Ivan Herrera has worked as a journalist in San Antonio since 2016. His work for KSAT 12 and KSAT.com includes covering breaking news of the day, as well as producing Q&As and content for the "South Texas Pride" and "KSAT Money" series.

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The Rolling Stones Really Might Never Stop

During a 19-song set at MetLife Stadium that spanned 60 years, the band tapped into what seems like a bottomless well of rock ’n’ roll energy.

By Lindsay Zoladz

Reporting from East Rutherford, N.J.

“This song’s for Manhattan!” Mick Jagger told the crowd on Thursday night at MetLife Stadium, before launching into a punchy rendition of “Shattered,” that agitated ode to late-70s New York City that closes out the band’s 1978 album “Some Girls.” In the ensuing 46 years, the city has changed in some superficial ways but somehow remained essentially the same — much, as they showed throughout an impressively energetic two-hour set, like the Rolling Stones.

The Stones’ first New York-area stadium gig in five years was sponsored, without a hint of irony, by AARP. It was appropriate: At times what transpired onstage felt not just like a rock concert but a display of the evolutionary marvel that is aging in the 21st century. (Albeit aging while wealthy, with every possible technological and medical advantage at one’s disposal. I’ll have whatever vitamins the Stones are taking, please.)

Ronnie Wood, the core group’s baby at age 76, still shreds on the guitar with a grinning, impish verve. Eighty-year-old and eternally cool Keith Richards pairs his bluesy licks with a humble demeanor that seems to say “I can’t believe I’m still here, either.” And then there is Jagger, who turns 81 a few days after the Hackney Diamonds Tour wraps in July. Six decades into his performing career, he is somehow still the indefatigable dynamo he always was, slithering vertically like a charmed snake, chopping the air as if he’s in a kung fu battle against a swarm of unseen mosquitoes, and, when he needs both hands to dance, which is often, nestling the microphone provocatively above the fly of his pants. Sprinting the length of the stage during a rousing “Honky Tonk Women” — the 13th song in the set! — he conjured no other rock star so much as Benjamin Button, as he seemed to become even more energetic as the night went on.

Last year’s “ Hackney Diamonds ” — the Stones’ first album of new material in nearly two decades — was the nominal reason for the tour, but they didn’t linger on it, and the crowd didn’t seem to mind. Across 19 songs, they played only three tunes from the latest release, including two of the best: The taut, growly lead single “Angry” and, for the first part of the encore, the gospel-influenced reverie “Sweet Sounds of Heaven.” Mostly it was a kind of truncated greatest hits collection, capturing the band’s long transformation from reverent students of the blues (Richards’ star turn on the tender “You Got the Silver”) to countercultural soothsayers (a singalong-friendly “Sympathy for the Devil”) to corporate rock behemoth (they opened, of course, with “Start Me Up”).

Jagger, Richards and Wood all still emanate a palpable joy for what they are doing onstage. But those joys also feel noticeably personal and siloed, rarely blending to provide much intra-band chemistry. That is likely a preservation strategy — the surest way to keep a well-oiled machine running and to continue sharing the stage with the same people for half a century or more. But when Jagger ended a charming story about a local diner that had named a sandwich after him (“I’ve never had a [expletive] sandwich named after me! I’m very, very proud”), I did not quite buy his assertion that he, Keith and Ronnie were going to go enjoy one together after the show.

Some of that fractured feeling is likely due to the absence of the great Charlie Watts , the band’s longtime drummer who died in 2021; the Hackney Diamonds Tour is the Stones’ first North American stadium tour without him. His replacement, Steve Jordan, does about as good a job as anyone could — like Watts, he balances a rock drummer’s power with a jazzy agility — and his presence never overwhelms. Though they are surrounded by plenty of talented backing musicians, the staging makes it clear that the Rolling Stones are now a trio.

The night’s breakout star, though, was Chanel Haynes, a backing vocalist who took center stage to sing with Jagger during two of the night’s best performances. Haynes — who played Tina Turner in the West End production of the jukebox musical “Tina” before joining the Stones’ touring band in 2023 — ably filled the shoes of the mighty Merry Clayton on a blazing “Gimme Shelter,” and sat in for Lady Gaga on “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” matching the megawatt intensity of her “Hackney Diamonds” cameo. Though Haynes could be velvety soft when the song called for it, at her most impressive she sang with a low, grumbling hunger that often swelled into ferocity, as if she were taking big, meaty bites out of the songs.

Jagger, for his part, delivered many of his lines in his signature bark: The second song, a somewhat slowed down and blues-ified “Get Off of My Cloud,” was transformed by his almost scat-like delivery. But in fleeting moments — including a few falsetto runs — he showed that a certain tenderness in his tone remains intact.

That was most apparent on a gorgeous rendition of “Wild Horses,” the song that gained inclusion in the set by winning the nightly online “fan vote.” For so much of this show, the Stones effectively proved they could outrun age, irrelevancy and all the other indignities that time brings to mere mortals. But here they settled into something more contemplative, elegiac and vulnerable, and the show was better for it.

At a time when their few remaining peers are wrapping farewell tours and bands that have been together for half as long are running on fumes, the Stones are an anomaly. It’s not that their show is devoid of nostalgia, but it’s not coasting on it either. They don’t look like they did in the ’70s — who does? — but when their sound is gelling they are able to tap into some kind of eternal present. For better or worse, they seem intent to be the last band of their generation standing, to ride rock ’n’ roll all the way to its logical endpoint. Astoundingly, they don’t sound like they’ve reached it yet.

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