13 October 1984 – Queen continue their controversial concerts in Sun City, South Africa 🇿🇦
Freddie was on vocal rest the last few days as he was having issues with his throat. His last show on the 7th ended early and Freddie left the stage disappointed. He feels better and sounds better during this show according to sources.
These concerts took place at the height of the apartheid regime.
During the apartheid policy of South Africa the United Nations requested entertainers to boycott the country and the Britain’s Musicians’ Union banned any of its members from performing in Sun City.
Queen are non-political and played the shows anyway! They wanted to play as the fans were excited to see the band, the tickets sold out in just one day. The fastest ever at this venue!
“We’ve thought a lot about the morals of it a lot,” claimed Brian May at the time, “and it is something we’ve decided to do. The band is not political – we play to anybody who wants to come and listen.”
Shortly after the shows, Brian explained: “We’re totally against apartheid and all it stands for, but I feel we did a lot of bridge building. We actually met musicians of both colours. They all welcomed us with open arms. The only criticism we got was from outside of South Africa.”
“Throughout our career we’ve been a very non-political group. We enjoy going to new places. We’ve toured America and Europe so many times that it’s nice to go somewhere different … I know there can be a bit of fuss, but apparently we’re very popular down there … Basically, we want to play wherever fans want to see us.” ~ John Deacon
The concerts were between October 5 – 20, 1984
The amazing photo is from this show and was taken by a photographer who was the photo editor for South Africa’s biggest daily newspaper (at the time) named the Sowetan.
