Queen Hyde Park 18th September 1976
Support from Kiki Dee, Steve Hillage, and Supercharge.
The last open air festival event I went to in the long hot summer of 1976 was Queen in Hyde Park. A group of us went down to London by train on a day return ticket, returning straight after the concert on the mail train which pulled out of Kings Cross at midnight. This was a free concert, which drew a crowd of over 150,000, and was organised by Richard Branson. The line-up consisted of Supercharge, Steve Hillage and Kiki Dee. Kiki Dee had just been No 1 in the charts with Elton John and their massive hit Don’t Go Breaking My Heart. There were lots of rumours about that Elton would join her onstage for the song, but he didn’t; instead she was accompanied by a life-size cardboard Elton figure, and we all had to sing the Elton parts with her. Steve Hillage was quite popular at the time, and was great on the day, lots of glissando guitar, and amazing psychedelic trippy versions of the Beatles’ All Too Much, and Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man. There was a big fight in the crowd during his set. But the day belonged to Queen. It was quite a brave move headlining such a major event at what was still a relatively early point in their career, but they pulled it off and were as majestic as ever. Their set was relatively short, around an hour, because of curfew and time restrictions. Apparently Queen were prevented from returning for their usual long encore by the Police. This was just before they released the Day At The Races album. Freddy was amazing, although from where we were standing he was a tiny white figure shining across the massive sea of people (no big screens to watch in those days).
Setlist: A Day At the Races Intro; Bohemian Rhapsody; Ogre Battle; Sweet Lady; White Queen (As It Began); Flick of the Wrist; You’re My Best Friend; Bohemian Rhapsody; Killer Queen; The March of the Black Queen; Bohemian Rhapsody (Reprise); Bring Back That Leroy Brown; Brighton Rock; Son and Daughter; ’39; You Take My Breath Away; The Prophet’s Song; Death on Two Legs; Stone Cold Crazy; Keep Yourself Alive; Liar; In the Lap of the Gods… Revisited
7 Mar
Vintagerock's Weblog. 
Posted by Alan Fox on May 5, 2015 at 6:40 pm
I remember this well, I was working in London at the time and met up with you all at Marble Arch, how we managed this in the days before mobile phones with so many people there I don’t know, but we did
Posted by vintagerock on May 6, 2015 at 8:51 am
Yes I remember us meeting at Marble Arch. Happy Days Peter
Posted by peter smith - aka Jim on June 26, 2019 at 10:16 pm
Went down from Matlock with my friend Yosh and his girlfriend Urban Sydney Clearway (that’s true btw – contact me if you read this guys!). We stayed at his brother’s flat and I remember parking the Cortina somewhere in Deptford then going on the tube with half a can of coke/vodka and associated drunken revelry. I clearly remember Freddie in his white wide sleeved top singing Seven Seas of Rye and we were real close to the front. Sadly the aftermath included getting an electric shock around 3am back at the flat as I crawled across the fllor heading to the loo, only to put my hand on a faulty extension cable, that sobered me up lol.