Queen weren’t in the greatest of moods when they arrived in Montreal in late November 1981. Their tour in support of the previous year’s The Game album was supposed to have wrapped up a month earlier in Mexico. Yet here they were, having loaded up 17 massive semi-trailer trucks and brought their 51-strong crew north to play a pair of shows at the 18,000-capacity Montreal Forum.
“We’d done a hell of a lot of touring by that time, and it was time to take a rest,” says Queen guitarist Brian May, speaking at London’s BFI IMAX cinema ahead of the UK premiere of the restored version of Queen Rock Montreal, the concert movie filmed at those two shows. “Unfortunately, our manager, the illustrious Jim Beach, had done a deal in which we would play in Montreal. That was hard for us. We were already slightly grumpy about that, not just because, physically, we needed a rest, but also because you have to re-gear up. You’ve finished a tour, you’ve got all your crew, and they’ve all gone to different places, and suddenly for these two shows you have to bring everything back together. Everybody was a little bit huffy and puffy: ‘Why are we doing this?’”
