MUSIC royalty is making its way onto the biggest screens in October when Queen’s iconic Budapest concert blasts its way into Ster-Kinekor’s IMAX cinemas.
On 27 July 1986, the iconic British rock group Queen made history by performing a ground-breaking stadium concert at the Népstadion (The People’s Stadium) in Budapest, Hungary, in front of 80 000 ecstatic fans. The concert was part of the famed Magic Tour, which was the last time the band toured with lead singer Freddie Mercury.
This original concert film has been beautifully rescanned and remastered in 4K alongside a dynamic new audio mix, featuring many of Queen’s favourite tracks – Bohemian Rhapsody, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, I Want To Break Free, and We Are The Champions. With three years to go before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this was the first Western rock concert performed in a stadium behind the then Iron Curtain. To connect deeply with the audience, Freddie Mercury also famously sang the traditional Hungarian folk song Tavaszi Szél Vizet Áraszt with the lyrics written on his palm
Hungary was still under a communist dictatorship. The concert was of such significance to the Hungarian authorities and film industry that a group of the country’s top film cameramen and technicians were brought together to film it for posterity. The result: the recorded footage was originally released as the concert movie Live in Budapest, later retitled Hungarian Rhapsody: Queen Live in Budapest.
To mark the legacy of this pivotal performance, a meticulously restored 4K edition titled Queen Budapest, featuring a dynamic new audio mix handled by Sir Peter Jackson’s New Zealand post-production facility.
