Busking is a tough gig, especially when you’re playing on a busy street. Distractions are plentiful, and hundreds of people can pass by without even giving you so much of a glimpse. That can be extremely disheartening, but Ed Sheeran’s career took off through busking so it’s worth keeping your head down and playing on.
That’s a rule that Brazilian electric guitar ace Andryel Jung stuck to recently when a swarm of cops tackled a suspect to the ground just meters away from his spot as he shredded Queen’s We Are The Champions solo – and the irony of that isn’t lost on Guitar World.
Through documenting his ceaseless busking adventures, Jung has amassed an impressive 256K Instagram followers and usually takes to the streets with a Fender Stratocaster or a PRS.
He was wielding the latter when this memorable incident took place and, impressively, as the drama unfolds behind him, he simply turns to take it all in, even motions towards the maelstrom mid-guitar solo as he plays to the crowd. What’s more impressive is the fact he never misses a note.
In the clip, the cops can be heard before they are seen. Jung is holding his guitar aloft, giving a real showman’s take on Brian May’s iconic solo, before the camera zooms out in time to see an officer wrestling the assailant to the ground. A raft of officers soon follow, but Jung remains laser-focused on his task.
After a very tasteful but minimal final flurry of notes, he again turns to the scene behind him amid an eruption of cheers and applause. “The cops saved the show,” the on-screen caption reads.
The incident took place on George Street in Sydney, Australia, where Jung is a frequent shredder. Comments on the Instagram post, which has clocked up over 72,000 likes include, “You made the arrest epic,” and “[You] need to quickly switch to Another One Bites the Dust.”
Discussing his solo that isn’t a solo on Queen’s 1977 hit, Brian May told Guitar World that his off-the-cuff licks were “never discussed”.
“What was discussed,” he remembered, “was that Freddie wanted the guitar to be fighting with the voice towards the end. It’s a strange story. I’d done the rhythm part for that, and sort of forgotten about it. And it came quite quickly to the time when we were going to mix it, and I suddenly thought, there’s not really any lead guitar on there.
“I came back into the studio on the morning of the mix, and redid most of it because I could hear it much more clearly in my head. And Freddie came back in and said, ‘Oh, I like what you’ve done with the guitar at the end. I want to make sure we mix it so the guitar is fighting with the vocal at every point at the end. It should be a battle!’”
Jung’s battling experience of the song was a little more literal, and it’s made for social media gold.
Meanwhile, a local radio station’s campaign has resulted in “nuisance” buskers being banned from performing at one of London’s biggest tourist hotspots.
