Had there ever been a The Miracle Tour for Queen, what would be your ideal setlist?

Yes, I know this has been discussed to death ever since 1989, but had Freddie, due to some miracle (ha! get it?) or magic spell, been fit enough to tour/play a concert, which songs do you think they would've played, or wish they had played? And I know as well it's basically impossible that it would have happened, but imagination is fun, right? I'd go with:

Queen - A Night at the Miracle Pavillon
Regular Setlist:
01. Breakthru (with the "A New Life is Born" intro taped)
02. Tie Your Mother Down
03. Keep Yourself Alive (w/ short drum solo)
04. Somebody to Love (w/ vocal improv. at the beggining)
05. A Kind of Magic
06. The Miracle
07. Killer Queen (full version)
08. Seven Seas of Rhye (w/ "Liar" intro)
09. Too Much Love Will Kill You (duet between Brian and Freddie)
10. Stone Cold Crazy
11. In The Lap of The Gods... Revisited (the 1986 live version)
12. Under Pressure
13. Now I'm Here
14. I Want It All (w/ single intro)
15. Love of My Life (acoustic)
16. Is This The World We Created? (acoustic)
17. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
18. I Want to Break Free
19. Brighton Rock (w/ guitar solo, incl. parts of "Chinese Torture")
20. The Invisible Man
21. Another One Bites the Dust (w/ bass solo)
22. Scandal
23. Bohemian Rhapsody (w/ "Mustapha" intro, taped opera part)
24. Hammer to Fall
25. Was It All Worth It?
First Encore:
26. One Vision (w/o intro)
27. Jailhouse Rock
28. Radio Ga Ga
29. Who Wants to Live Forever?
Second Encore:
30. We Will Rock You (fast version)
31. Friends Will Be Friends
32. We Are the Champions
33. God Save the Queen (taped outro, from ANATO)

Basically The Magic Tour plus some Miracle songs, since I wanted to stay the closest possible to their real concerts. For me the band would've been bigger, because as well as Spike Edney on the keys, there'd be a second guitarrist (to work along with Brian on the more complicated parts) and even maybe a couple of female backing vocalists, to make use of some of their great vocal harmonies whcih weren't used to the fullest potential live. What about you?

 

I dig that setlist but it's a lot of songs!!!
Would have loved to hear Scandal live. Drop these and I think it's perfect!
Who Wants to Live Forever
Now im Here
Friends Will Be Friends
Jailhouse Rock
Is This the World We Created

 

I always imagined 'I Want It All' being a concert's opener for the band in 1989/90.

 

Well, there were initial plans for a six-date tour of the UK that would see each venue renamed The Miracle Pavillion for the occasion, including a "hometown" closing night at the very same Dominion Theatre in London where the We Will Rock You musical later made its debut (not to mention it was also the location for what turned out to be Freddie's last actual live performance, when he joined a charity performance of Time on 14 April 1988). Anyway, back to a theoretical Miracle Tour setlist...

One of the best things about Queen's concerts is that we can almost be certain of the last two songs, as I doubt the surprise of placing Friends Will Be Friends between We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions would have been maintained - I seem to recall a quote that once mentioned this being a late change designed to switch things up for audiences, though it wouldn't have made sense in 1989 when you consider how little an impact Friends Will Be Friends had compared with the other two tracks.

Regarding the intro for the show, I'm again quite sure that a tape of some kind would have been used, and the opening to Breakthru does seem a logical choice. Saying that, I've also seen previous discussions of this subject where it was suggested that perhaps Party might have served as the walk-on music, leading into a live version of Freddie singing the quite relevant lyrics to Khashoggi's Ship before then spending much of the set at his piano in order to pace himself and preserve stamina.

In terms of other songs, I do agree that we'd have likely got something close to the Magic Tour running order, presumably without the covers section and tracks such as Who Wants To Live Forever and Is This The World We Created. Since there's recorded evidence of Brian already incorporating the basic idea for what later became Chinese Torture into his later '86 solos, that would have worked as a further promotional tool for the latest album while also giving Freddie a well-needed breather.

Beyond those tracks that had long since been elevated to live staples, I suspect we'd have probably got a truncated version of I Want It All and possibly Scandal, though I dread to think how well Freddie might have succeeded at reproducing the latter's vocal lines. If anything, he'd likely have modified the overall melody quite significantly. Even with the addition of Spike Edney, I just don't see anything too complex such as Was It All Worth It being possible, which is a shame.

Also, let's not forget that it was only royalty issues unable be resolved in time that forced Too Much Love Will Kill You off The Miracle. As a further opportunity for Freddie to take a break, this could have worked great if Brian was to perform it alone, as he'd do at the tribute concert just a few years after. Maybe they could have even used this as a tool to promote whatever project was on the cards next at that point, knowing Freddie wouldn't be able to tour again?

Finally, another point where Freddie always excelled even when he wasn't on form was during vocal improvisations. Despite my earlier remarks, perhaps he might have treated us to the wordless opening to Was It All Worth It, Exercises In Free Love or maybe previews from Innuendo outtakes that were already in the can - I'm fairly sure Don't Try So Hard was completed long before the rest of its parent album, nearly becoming a lead single in either mid or late 1990.

At the very least, I'd have loved to see Queen follow through on another rumour by releasing a VHS presentation edited from two nights under controlled conditions at either a private location or shorter concerts, which is one of the many options I remember them considering until Freddie's health ruled out playing in front of even a small crowd, which is how Rare Live came to be the group's only release for the end of '89, also taking the place of an EP to have been called Another Miracle.

 

Oh yes? Tell us more...

 

My understanding is that QPL was originally going to release an EP of b-sides from the five 1989 singles along with several new songs that may have already been completed for Innuendo, but this changed when Freddie insisted on going directly back into the studio again, with large amounts of material quickly amassed (including the eventual title track of Queen's final proper album).

 

I could see them skipping the intro to Was it All Worth It and jumping straight to the main song, maybe with a keyboard intro by Spike Edney. That could work, I think

And why would Who Wants To Live Forever and Is This The World We Created get the boot? I like them both a lot, and see things like that Lap of the Gods/Seven Seas of Rhye medley as much more expendable than these two.

By the way, I updated that tracklist,

Queen - A Night at the Miracle Pavillon
Regular Setlist:
01 Breakthru [with pre-recorded "A New Life is Born" intro]
02 Tie Your Mother Down
03 The Miracle [piano intro from Death on Two Legs as intro]
04 Khashoggi's Ship [segues right in from The Miracle]
05 A Kind of Magic
06 Under Pressure [Freddie's vocal improv right before it]
07 Another One Bites the Dust
08 Who Wants to Live Forever [Freddie has a monologue before it]
09 I Want to Break Free
10 Guitar Solo [based mostly on Chinese Torture]
11 Now I'm Here
12 Love of My Life
13 Too Much Love Will Kill You [piano and synths only, Brian on piano]
14 Is This The World We Created?
15 I Want it All [with the single version arrangement]
16 Hammer to Fall
17 Scandal [has a cold start rather than the album fade-in, also ends cold]
18 Crazy Little Thing Called Love
19 The Invisible Man [ends cold as well, with Roger's drum solo in the middle]
20 Somebody to Love
21 Bohemian Rhapsody
22 Was It All Worth It? [keyboard intro instead of original]
First Encore:
23 One Vision [no intro, cold start with guitar riff]
24 Radio Gaga
Second Encore:
25 We Will Rock You
26 We Are the Champions
27 God Save the Queen

 

Before giving my opinion, I want in advance to apologize for any errors in writing. I am not a Native English speaker, I am Brazilian, and I am not fluent in English, so maybe there must be some wrong things hehe. If you see, do not hesitate to correct me, I don’t mind, on the contrary, it helps me to improve!

About the repertory proposed by Dr. Robert, I like it a lot. It's a good set list, I agree with most of it. There are only a few things I would change.

Along two and a half decades watching Queen’s official shows and bootlegs, I've noticed a few things that I think should be considered to make this assumption. If you pay close attention, you will notice that there is a certain “mathematics” in the composition of Queen's set list. They knew very well how to work their albums. Look:

1. Excluding any covers and improvisations, Queen's set list had an average of 25 songs, except for the first tours, for obvious reasons.

2. On average, five songs were always from the current album. That number was only higher before A Day Tour, of course because there were fewer albums, and in some presentations of The Works Tour. And it was minor only on the Magic Tour, I guess for the opposite reason. The more you advance in your career, the more “obligatory” classics appear in the repertory. So, probably a Miracle Tour would have four Miracle songs.

3. Not necessarily these four or five songs were the album's singles. It just coincided with being in the Game and Magic.

4. On average, the same number of songs came from the immediately previous album. The exception was on The Works tour, probably because the bad reception of Hot Space.

5. The opening song was always a powerful rock song from the current disc. The only exceptions were the Jazz and Game tours, in which they kept WWRY Fast from News Tour. But even in these cases, there was a song from the current album right after that, such as Let Me Entertain You in Jazz Tour.

6. Before the opening song itself, there was always a intro taped (BoRhap, Procession, A Day At The Races Overture, WWRY, Machines). One Vision managed to fuse this with what I said in the previous item in a single shot, being a perfect opening. Breakthru has the same feature, so it would have great potential to be used as the initial song, although it's not as powerful as Vision. I'm going to put it on, but I think that on a real tour the chances of One Vision continuing as an opening wouldn’t be small.

7. Only five songs have been present on every tour since they were released: BoRhap, Love of my life, Tie Your Mother Down, WWRY and Champions. There were other supposedly obligatory classics, such as Somebody To Love, Killer Queen, Keep Yourself and Sheer Heart, but they were quite adventurous on the Magic tour by showing that if they had to, some of the classics would be out for new songs to come in. Maybe on an upcoming Miracle Tour they would keep some classics played in the Magic Tour and replace others, to give a different face to the new tour. I’ll follow this line.

8. songs predominantly played on the piano tended to go to the medleys, except for those that were very successful and even so Killer Queen was used in that format. I guess that would be the fate of The Miracle.

9. The official representatives of the first album were always "Keep Yourself Alive" and "Liar", but on the Works tour they brought back "Great King Rat". I like that idea, that’s surprising. I'll keep it.

10. With the exception of the Night tour, Bo Rhap always stayed for the final moments of the show, I guess to keep the audience expecting.

11. With Somebody to Love, the opposite happened, it was always at the beginning, I imagine, due to her technical difficulty. It is normal for vocalists to choose to put songs that require them more at the beginning of the set list, before any sign of fatigue (for example, Myles Kennedy does the same with Halo). I only saw Somebody go more towards the middle / end of the repertory with Adam Lambert, but he is a tenor while Mercury was a baritone (with more treble than some tenors, but yes he was a baritone), so the music kind of requires less of Lambert, so to speak. Anyway, it is likely that it appeared at first, but I will deliberately throw it to the end for an aesthetic purpose. We're talking about Freddie Mercury, I think he would do that easily.

12. Like the intro, the last song before the encore was always exciting. Tie Your Mother was used as opening only when it emerged, then was placed at the end of the set list for long years to occupy that post and eventually was still followed by Sheer Heart on the return. TYMD only came back to the beginning of the set on the Works Tour when it was replaced at the ending by Hammer to Fall.

13. Strangely enough, the combination WWRY and Champions was only used as a fixed shutdown on three tours - Jazz, Space and Works. It was common to have other songs after them, like Sheer Heart, Bites The Dust or covers. And there was also the surprising inclusion of Friends on the Magic tour - which I really like but, like ShardEnder well said, I don’t believe they would repeat it, since surprise element had already been spent. It’s possible that WWRY/Champions were still serving as a conclusion for a Miracle tour, but it would not be strange if Was It All Worth It or other suddenly appeared right before, after or even between then.

14. The rest of the set list sought to go through all phases of the group, but it was normal an album to be left out, especially the first two and Flash, but not only them - in Live At Wembley the entire Jazz was out.

15. Speaking in Jazz, Don’t Stop Me Now is a song inexplicably neglected by the band. After the Jazz Tour it never showed up again on another tour. I'll put it on my set list as a kind of redemption, but probably in an official band show it wasn’t there, unfortunately.

16. I can’t say that for sure because I have not seen all of Queen's performances but based on the many I've seen and what I've read, I've never seen a revival of any music on tour. What I want to say: No song that didn’t appear on the tour of it’s original album was played on the tour of another later album. The only exception may be Love of My Life, which is not usually featured in A Night Tour.

17. Finally, although I quite like this song, I find it quite unlikely that "Too Much Love Will Kill You" will come in. There was never a mix between the band and their solo careers until Mercury's death. May only played it in the tribute because it wasn’t been released so far and he wanted to show something new - and I imagine he already had in mind to put the version with Freddie on vocals on some future Queen release. This cross would only happen with the inclusion of Last Horizon during May’s solos in the tours with Rodgers and Lambert and no other case.

Well, that's what I remember. There must be something else I forgot, if anybody remembers, please add hehehe.

Considering all these items and even then knowing that it is just speculation, this would be my set list for a Miracle Tour:

1 Breakthru
2 Tie Your Mother Down
3 Fat Bottomed Girls
4 Another One Bites The Dust
5 The Miracle (medley)
6 Killer Queen (medley)
7 Friends Will Be Friends (medley)
8 A Kind of Magic
9 I Want It All
10 Great King Rat
11 Chinese Torture / Guitar Solo
12 Don't Stop Me Now
13 Under Pressure
14 Love of My Life
15 Who Wants to Live Forever
16 I Want to Break Free
17 Crazy Little Thing Called Love
18 Hammer to Fall
19 Somebody To Love
20 Bohemian Rhapsody
21 Scandal
22 Radio Gaga
23 We Will Rock You
24 We Are The Champions
25 God Save the Queen

Wow... Looking now, I think I exaggerated a bit in the extension of this post... My bad, I’m sorry. But it's been my favorite band since I was 11 years old, it's inevitable I get excited talking about it.

 

Great guesswork, man! As a fellow brazillian, I've got to say, impeccable english, and a fantastic analysis. I've got to say, our tracklists are fairly similar, only mine has two additional tunes. And I agree with all of your choices, with only a couple of exceptions.

I don't see Great King Rat, Fat Bottomed Girls or Don't Stop Me Now (this one specially considering the lyrics and Freddie's state at the time) coming back to the setlist. Instead, I can see them focusing more on newer songs, considering the shows were supposed to be in a smaller scale.

I also don't like The Miracle as just part of a medley, as it was the title track of the album, and one of the most important, both thematically and musically, in it. And adding the fact that Freddie was tired of playing Killer Queen by 86, I replace the piano medley by a standalone song.

And as much as I love Somebody to Love, it had already fell out of favour by 86, being last performed in 84, as far as I remember. So I don't see it returing by then, unfortunely.

And finally, Was it All Worth It is a REALLY powerful closer, in my view, and would make for a fantastic live track, so it almost begs its inclusion in there. I also added some The Miracle deeper cuts you omitted, to both add some variety and show off the fantastic album they made, back then. That includes Too Much Love Will Kill You, as they seem to like it quite a lot.

 

I guess the reason why they kept 'Killer Queen' in medley performances and didn't play it individually is the later half of the song (in the studio version) contains more complex vocal backing and it ends with a fade-out, which couldn't be replicated live.
By the way, very nice thoughts and setlist! Also, your English is great.

 

Thanks, Parça! Glad to read that!

Me neither! hahaha! As I said before, I included them just to give a greater variety to the set, but it is very unlikely that Don't Stop would come back. And certainly would be Keep Yourself instead of Great King, and maybe not even that, looking at the Magic tour.

About The Miracle, remember that Bo Rhap and Killer Queen were played in medleys when they were released. And The Miracle had a median reception as a single. But who knows.

And Was it All Worth It... Yeah, I love it too, for me is the best song of the album. But I don't know about it coming up on a gig. In the 80s, all the songs Queen included in their shows had been previously released as singles, or at least as a B-side (Tear it up), what didn't happen to this one. The only exception was Is This The World, but it was kind of a "Live Aid Theme" and ended up becoming one of the most popular songs from The Works. But certainly, it'd be great to see them perform it alive, ending a night.

Thanks!

 

That is incorrect. Aside from "Love of My Life", "'39", "You're My Best Friend", "Death on Two Legs", and "I'm In Love With My Car" were not played on the ANATO Tour, but were played later. "'39" and "You're My Best Friend" debuted in the September 1976 gigs (which included their famous Hyde Park free concert). "Death on Two Legs" debuted on the European leg of the Races Tour, in May 1977. "Love of My Life" and "I'm In Love With My Car" debuted on the News of the World Tour, in November 1977.

 

I think in an alternate timeline where the obvious hadn't happened and Queen had carried on doing what they were doing, "I Want It All" would have ended up becoming a huge live anthem for them. It would have been up there with "Hammer to Fall" etc. as a live highlight and a staple of their set. "Was It All Worth It" would have been one that I would have loved to have seen, too. I suppose this alternate timeline idea is flawed, though, as The Miracle may very well have turned out to be a very different record if the circumstances surrounding its creation had been different.

 

Here's how I envision the setlist looking if Freddie was healthy:

1. "Breakthru" (on tape until the "NOW" when the band emerges live)
2. "Tie Your Mother Down"
3. "Killer Queen" (the start of the medley, in it's usual arrangement, segueing into...)
4. "Seven Seas of Rhye" (in the 1984-1986 arrangement, segueing into...)
5. "Liar" (performed like on the Works Tour)
6. "Somebody to Love"
7. "The Invisible Man"
8. "Under Pressure"
9. "A Kind of Magic"
10. "Who Wants to Live Forever" (in the dropped key, like the Magic Tour)
11. "I Want to Break Free"
12. "Now I'm Here" (maybe this is where they do the "Ay-Oh"+possibly other improv)
13. "Love of My Life"
14. "'39"
15. "I Want It All"
16. "Another One Bites the Dust"
17. "Bohemian Rhapsody"
18. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"
19. "Hammer to Fall"
Encore 1:
20. "One Vision"
21. "Radio Ga Ga"
Encore 2:
22. "We Will Rock You"
23. "We Are the Champions"

The only ones I am iffy about are the medley and "'39". Most tours had a medley but I think they could've ditched that idea in favor of more complete songs. Maybe they could've thrown in one or two more songs on the album, since only three seems a little low. "Scandal" or "The Miracle" (I think both of these would've still happened despite the imprint of Freddie's health. Even without AIDS the UK Tabloids still harrassed the band a lot during the late 1980s. And I think Brian once said that if Freddie had lived "The Miracle" would've been a major crowdpleaser The only song I don't think would've happened if Freddie was healthy is "Was It All Worth It".) are possibilities, since they were both singles. Maybe something like "Party" or "Khashoggi's Ship" could've been done because except for AKOM they frequently included album tracks on their album's respective tours.

"'39" I added because the mini-acoustic set it would create with "Love of My Life" was done on the Magic Tour, (but with "Is This the World We Created...?" and the oldies section instead of "'39"), and I don't think that "World" would be enduring enough to be in 3 tours in a row, plus the oldies section seemed more a one-tour thing. "'39" was played frequently from 1976-1979 so I think it could fill the gap.

 

Hmm. I'm not so sure about that. "The Miracle" to me sounds very much like a lyric written by a guy who is trying to savour the last years of his life, making observations about the world around him, his place in it and meditating on how miraculous life, existence and nature is. It doesn't sound like the type of lyric written by a guy who is still partying.

 

I can imagine Scandal working well live. I don't like the record but Queen tended to make songs that were synth heavy into powerful rockers live. I don't have a problem with Queen's use of synths or their pop songs, but Scandal always sounded awful to me, even in 1989.