‘Queen The Greatest Live’ – Episode 23: “Another One Bites The Dust”

Queen is back with episode 23 of their weekly YouTube series Queen The Greatest Live, where they are still delving into the process of adapting their studio hits for the live stage.

This time, they are focused on the 1980 classic “Another One Bites The Dust,” which became one of the band’s biggest hits. The clip features archival footage of their performance at the first of their two shows at Wembley Stadium in July 1986.

“I listened to a lot of soul music when I was in school, and I’ve always been interested in that sort of music,” bassist John Deacon previously told Bassist & Bass Techniques about the song. “I’d been wanting to do a track like ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ for a while, but originally, all I had was the line and the bass riff. I could hear it as a song for dancing but had no idea it would become as big as it did.”

That song was totally transformed live, thanks to frontman Freddie Mercury, who led the Wembley crowd of over 72,000 fans in a call and response, with Brian May improvising guitar licks on his Red Special guitar.

Next week on Queen The Greatest Live, the group gets into “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”