In its continuing endeavor to rally support for COVID-19 efforts, Queen will be streaming their 1992 Freddie Mercury tribute concert, starting Friday, May 15.
The special online showing was posted in a YouTube announcement, inviting everyone to "come back Friday, May 15 for the Special YouTube Premier Screening of the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert." It will be available non-stop for 48 hours after its premiere at 2 PM EST.
Google will match every dollar donated by fans and patrons during the live-streamed event with its $2 donation as a part of the collaboration fundraiser between YouTube's parent company and the UN Foundation.
The tribute concert to be up this weekend is the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness, formerly held on Easter Sunday, April 20, 1992, at London's Wembley Stadium. It was broadcast live on both television and radio to more than 76 countries worldwide, with the event having some 72,000 live audiences and close to a million at-home viewers and listeners.
Queen's 1992 tribute also marked the launch of "The Mercury Phoenix Trust," an AIDS charity foundation formed by Jim Beach and the rest of the band soon after Mercury's death from AIDS-related causes in November 1991. The Mercury Phoenix Trust has already donated close to $20 million to different causes in several countries to fight AIDS.
Led by the band's surviving members - guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, and bassist John Deacon - the tribute fundraiser featured some of the most prominent artists. David Bowie, Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant, the Who's Roger Daltrey, Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi, Metallica's James Hetfield, and Guns n' Roses' Axl Rose, as well as artists Seal, George Michael, Elton John, Liza Minnelli, and more.
Queen's Tribute to The Current Champions
The YouTube weekender is the band's latest effort from the British rock legends. Last April 30, together with their current guest vocalist, Queen + Adam Lambert has tipped their hats to the medical frontline workers with an updated version of the classic anthem "We Are The Champions."
Currently titled, "You Are The Champions," May, Roger, and Lambert recorded their respective parts from the safety of their own homes, edited and posted in their Instagram and YouTube accounts. The video also included messages of gratitude and encouragement to the essential workers,
All proceeds from their music video went directly to the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. Google also matched every donation made up to $5 million.
Reliving Live Aid for Australia
In February this year, Queen + Adam Lambert performed Queen's legendary 1985 Live Aid concert set to help muster support for Australia, severely devastated by large and raging bushfires.
Their 22-minute set, with the "Velvet" artist lending his exceptional vocals to the cause, was a part of a more massive 10-hour benefit concert to raise ten million Australian dollars for local communities affected by the bushfires which have killed more than 30 people and destroyed homes.
Queen + Adam Lambert performed the same set of songs as in the 1985 fundraiser, which has been often hailed as the band's most iconic performance. Iconic that it was used as the climax for the 2018 biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody."
