Queen posted episode nine in the second season of their YouTube series, ‘The Greatest.’ In the latest episode, Brian May and Roger Taylor talk about why lighting is such a vital part of their show.
May said, “For that two-and-a-half hours that we're onstage, we are in complete control of the environment -- that means the sound, the lights, the temperature, everything.”
He added, "We've always thought the lights are not just objects to illuminate, they’re objects in themselves and they're part of the environment. And that's a kind of rock ‘n’ roll thing, I think. I think we imbibed that from seeing stuff that we enjoyed when we were kids.”
Taylor said they took a cue from Pink Floyd's use of lights and then built on that. He said, “There were so many acts going around that had hundreds of lights, all different colors, and it just made white. So, we had this idea of just having red, green and white. And it was very effective.”
According to May, one of Queen’s lighting rigs inspired Michael Jackson. He said, “We had lights in pods, and in each pod there was a man running it and operating it so you could actually interact with these pods. And there's some footage of me doing the guitar solo and playing to the pod and sort of moving it. It would sort of interact with me and talk to me when I'm playing. That was a lot of fun. Michael Jackson saw that and said, I want that. And he did.”
[Source: Classic Hits Today]