Opening remarks on Manchester attack – Queen in 3-D launch
Brian May on Manchester attack (Queen in 3-D launch) 23052017 – https://youtu.be/LbTC1QXZjBw
[Initially speaking about special 3-D glasses provided for use to the audience]
… we would desperately like them back afterwards because we have more of these things to do.
How are you all feeling? Are you okay?
This is a very strange day and I got up this morning to the news that this atrocious and – can I have your attention please – that this atrocious thing had happened in Manchester and it makes it very hard to kind of jolly and do a launch on a day like this and we considered whether we should cancel the launch or whatever, but in a sense, you know, the enemy we’re facing wants us to cancel our lives – stop breathing, stop enjoying, making music, dancing and having fun.
So we figured we should go ahead, but I thought I should address this head-on because, you know, as human beings, we love this stuff. We love 3-D photography. We love music. But we’re human beings first and then the prospect of someone bombing children is so incredible for us to take in, I think we should take a minute.
To me, you know, we’ve been as you’ll see in this book, as we skip through the book you’ll see that as world travellers we as Queen developed a little bit of a different view of the world to the way we would have been if we’d just stayed here in England. You know, we became very International and we saw – I’ve discussed this in the book – we saw the fact that violence and breed violence and so I see people, and particularly politicians at the moment deploring this violence, but in the next breath endorsing the fact that we might bomb somewhere and, in my opinion, we as a nation and as people are part of the escalation of violence, and I personally would like to see a complete shake-up and re-prioritising of the way in which we live in the world.
So, I don’t know if this is appropriate or not, but I jut feel that we shouldn’t move on without acknowledging these things. I wonder if we could have a minute’s silence and I wonder if we have a minute’s silence for these kids who were killed for no decent reason and for all their Mums and Dads, some of them don’t even know if their child is alive or dead yet. So I just thought that we’d have a minute’s silence to think about this and think about our place in the world and think if maybe we can change things and direct things more towards compassion and understanding and the elimination of violence. If you don’t mine – just 60 seconds.
Bri
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