“Set lists are a very interesting case. You have all these songs and everything and what is the optimum way to put them across? Do you just go in there and randomly work your way through where you can and that’s how everybody starts. But wouldn’t it be nice if you can take the audience on a journey and optimize the mood that happens?
The thing is, you want to quit before they want you to quit, you have to kind of be a little bit ahead of the game and Queen evolved this kind of shape to a show which is basically come on big. I mean, there are variations of this, but the shape was generally, come on big, give them what they’ve been waiting for.
They’re full of adrenaline. They want to rock hard, hard, hard. So, the first two or three songs in the set list, hit them hard in different ways, different tempos, different kind of atmospheres, but all hard rock.”
Sir Brian May, 2023