Freddie Mercury's stage-worn vest for his final performance with Queen, Knebworth Park, 9 August 1986

Freddie Mercury's stage-worn vest for his final performance with Queen, Knebworth Park, 9 August 1986

An athletics vest of yellow mesh edged in royal blue cotton, the front decorated with brand lettering and logo ‘Champion’ in royal blue with a touch of red (blue on C of logo faded), labelled inside with white ‘Champion’ lettering on blue satin label stating size: ‘S’, stitched to seam at back of the neck; the vest seen in footage of Freddie taken on the night of Queen’s last concert of the 'Magic' tour at Knebworth Park on 9 August 1986 backstage before the start of the concert, and on stage for the first half of the concert; initially, for the first five songs, it can be seen beneath Freddie’s yellow military style Diana Moseley-designed stage jacket which he wears open; then from the sixth song, 'A Kind of Magic', Freddie takes off his yellow jacket and his Champion vest is worn on its own for this and the following six numbers until he makes a costume change during Brian May’s guitar solo, out of his yellow jacket and yellow Champion vest ensemble into a white version of the Diana Moseley jacket and a white, yellow and black patterned T-shirt incorporating a semi-abstract design of a head in sunglasses

Queen’s concert at Knebworth on 9 August 1986 was attended by 120,000 fans, making it the group’s largest UK concert. It became one of the most significant Queen concerts of all time as it transpired afterwards that it was to be the last live concert with Freddie Mercury in the line up, Freddie having decided to bow out of any future large-scale shows following the end of the ‘Magic’ tour. Video footage of the concert survives from handheld audience footage as due to an oversight the concert was not officially filmed that night. This yellow Champion vest is the only piece of stage clothing associated with this landmark concert to be identified in this collection. The Champion vest had more stage time than the white sunglass patterned T-shirt which replaced it following the costume change, as Freddie took the latter off so that he was bare chested prior to donning the famous crown and cape for the finale.

The yellow military style Diana Moseley-designed stage jacket which accompanied this vest was sold at auction in London in 2004. The white version seen in the second half of the concert sold in the States in 2016.

See lot 2256 for the shirt worn by Freddie to arrive at Knebworth, and lot 2193 for the ‘Heaven ‘86’ vest worn under the white military jacket when leaving Knebworth.

LITERATURE

Queen: The Ultimate Illustrated History of The Crown Kings of Rock, Phil Sutcliffe with Peter Hince, Mick Rock, Reinhold Mack and Billy Squier; Voyageur Press, 2009, p.203 (illus.)

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