Queen announce deluxe edition, multi-format releases of Queen Rock Montreal

Queen in Queen Rock Montreal — (Image credit: Freddie&Brian_Queen Rock Montreal © Queen Productions Ltd..jpg)

Following the IMAX Event Cinema release of Queen Rock Montreal earlier this year, Queen have announced an array of deluxe edition releases on various formats, with double Blu-ray, double 4K Ultra High Definition, double CD and triple vinyl editions all arriving on May 10. The era-defining concert, which Brian May says is the band in “live and dangerous” form, captures Queen at their exhilarating peak.

Recorded at Montreal’s 18,000-capacity venue The Forum, where Queen played two nights in November 1981, the group were at the top of their game and enjoying a new level of commercial success on the back of 1980’s The Game album. In Another One Bits The Dust and Crazy Little Thing Called Love, they’d had their two biggest ever US hits. They were in the mood - Montreal were in for a treat. “Montreal is one of our favourite cities, it’s a great audience there, very full of energy,” Brian May says in an accompanying press release. “We’d played this particular venue, The Forum, several times before, and it was always full of really enthusiastic people giving us a lot of energy back.”

“It's fascinating to now realize how free we were on stage in 1981,” adds Roger Taylor. “It's a four piece, just the four of us in Queen, and to see Freddie. It's like being on stage with the band because the cameras are very high quality for the time. I've never seen anything that makes you feel quite so involved with the performance.”

For more details on the various formats and their tracklisting, head here, but first whet your appetite with this thrilling clip of the band in action in Montreal first:

Niall Doherty is a writer and editor whose work can be found in Classic Rock, The Guardian, Music Week, FourFourTwo, Champions Journal, on Apple Music and more. Formerly the Deputy Editor of Q magazine, he co-runs the music Substack letter The New Cue with fellow former Q colleague Ted Kessler. He is also Reviews Editor at Record Collector. Over the years, he's interviewed some of the world's biggest stars, including Elton John, Coldplay, Radiohead, Liam and Noel Gallagher, Florence + The Machine, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant and more.