Queen’s 20 minutes at Live Aid are often cited as the greatest rock concert ever (as now shown in the film Bohemian Rhapsody). I remember watching Live Aid on the day and I also remember Queen kicking ass and taking names. So much so that I stopped watching the concert, stop my video recording, rewound the tape and watched Queen again. Sorry David Bowie! What set Queen apart from the rest was good songs, great musicianship, obvious practice and, of course, Freddie.

Who can forget the thousands of synchronised arm thrusts during Radio Gaga or Freddie’s a-cappella call and response? For me, the set builds and builds until finishing with the awesome one-two punch of We Will Rock You and We are the Champions. This was anthemic all the way up to 11.

So I came up with a clever concept; take what Queen did at Live Aid in 1985 – produce 20 minutes of distilled brilliance from your back catalogue – and then apply that concept to other bands.

What would be the dream 20 minute setlist of your favourite band? The hits maybe. But which hits? Album tracks? Live favourites? So many choices.

Well, I’ll be posting some of my fantasy twenty minute sets from my favourite bands over the next few blog posts. I’ll be explaining my choices.

Let me know if you agree with them.

In no particular order, I’ll be writing set lists for :-

The Beatles

Elvis

The Stones

Led Zeppelin

The Who

So far, so obvious...

The Smiths

The Byrds

The Stone Roses

Abba

Oasis

Blur

Queen (I would probably drop Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Radio Gaga from their Live Aid setlist and add Don’t Stop Me Now and Another One Bites the Dust)

Sounds a good game, eh?