Paramore have paid tribute to Queen‘s late frontman Freddie Mercury while performing at London’s Wembley Stadium.
The band have been on the road with Taylor Swift serving as opening support on her worldwide ‘Eras’ tour. During the penultimate show of their five-night run at the iconic stadium, the frontwoman took the time to pay tribute to the late, great Mercury.
Sporting a cropped white t-shirt, a studded belt, light wash jeans and black boots – resembling the ‘Somebody To Love’ singer’s iconic outfit worn while performing at Live Aid at Wembley back in 1985 – frontwoman Hayley Williams told the crowd: “I’ve got one minute to try something and I need you to help me,” before going into Mercury’s famous ‘Ayo’ vocal runs from Live Aid.
The crowd proceeded to follow along with her call and response. Once finished, Willams was left stunned saying: “Oh my fucking God,” before laughing in surprise. The rest of the band were on stage watching and cheering in support.
Queen performed at Wembley on three separate occasions. They played a three-night run at Wembley Arena in 1978, followed by Live Aid at Wembley Stadium in 1985 and two sold-out shows there the following year.
The two sold-out nights were in support of their 12th album ‘A Kind of Magic’. Both nights were professionally filmed with the second night being released as the concert film Queen at Wembley. The shows also broke attendance records with over 400,000 people in attendance and featured the largest lighting rig and stage ever assembled for a live show.
In 1992, The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert took place in the stadium to an audience of 72,000. It was produced for television and broadcast live on both TV and radio to 76 countries around the world, with an audience of up to one billion. The profits from the concert were used to launch the Mercury Phoenix Trust, an AIDS charity organization.
The show saw the likes of Metallica, Def Leppard, Extreme and Guns N’ Roses perform as well as the surviving members of Queen alongside guest singers such as Elton John, The Who’s Roger Daltrey, Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi, Ian Hunter, David Bowie, Mick Ronson, James Hetfield, George Michael, Seal, Paul Young, Annie Lennox, Lisa Stansfield, Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and more.
In other Paramore news, the band recently played ‘Decode’ during the third night of Swift’s five night run at Wembley and dedicated to Robert Pattinson in a nod to Twilight. Pattison was in attendance at the show on August 17 because his fiancée Suki Waterhouse had performed as the first support act.
Elsewhere, Williams recently responded to Paramore being “one of only two bands that include women” in the ‘most-streamed rock acts’ chart, sharing that she hopes to see more diverse representation in the future.