|
Review
by
Collectors
music reviews
The
six concerts Queen played in Japan late in 1982 are the final of
what would be their longest tour in support of a new album and would
be the last concerts they would play for almost two whole years.
Of the six, five have been taped from the audience with only the
second night, October 20th in the Kyuden Auditorium in Fukuoka
missing. The first show on October 19th in Fukuoka was
released on the well-known triple LP Hot Space Tour '82,
and copied on CD, as the final Los Angeles date. The October
24th show in Osaka has two unique tapes and both were released
on Wardour as Stadium Rock (Wardour-028), the October 29th
Sapporo date has seen release on vinyl and CD as Live In Japan and
the final Japan date, on November 3rd in Tokyo was released several
years ago also by Wardour on Space Boogie (Wardour-011).
Firedance use the same tape source that was released
previously by Heart Breakers as Action And More Action
(HB-939-1/2) in 1999. The audience recording captures the
complete show and is very close to the stage being very clear and
detailed. It also has a strange flat, two-dimensional
quality. Compared to the older silver release, this one is
louder with noticeable levels of hiss present on the first disc
especially. If this is from the master or closer to the
master, then the tape is showing its age. Nevertheless it is
still perhaps the best sounding audience recording from the tour.
Recently a second tape source in very good quality surfaced for
this show that runs from the beginning to "Love Of My
Life" and contains numerous cuts, but Wardour did not
incorporate any of that source on Firedance.
The
Hot Space tour is characterized by the band trying to
figure out what they want to do in concert. Unlike previous
tours they never did settle on a set tour list and spend the months
experimenting on what song to open the show with and what new
material to include in the set. At various times "Tie
Your Mother Down" and "The Hero" after the taped
"Flash's Theme" were used as set openers, but in
Nagoya they use the slow beginning of "Rock It" segued
directly with "We Will Rock You (fast)", an arrangement
first recorded at the July 21st show on Montreal (Flash In Space,
Breakdown-75A/B). "Action This Day" is one of the
constants and always played right after the opening numbers and
"Play The Game" includes a brief, pretty piano
introduction. "Calling All Girls" was played at all
of the Japanese shows and is introduced as a new song written
by Roger. Like much of the new songs, it sounds much
better and heavier live than in the studio and is not as dopey as
the title suggests. "Now I'm Here" made several
moves in the set list throughout the year but settled to being
played relatively early. Since Queen dropped, for the
only time in their career, a regular medley of recent and older
tunes, the Sheer Heart Attack song served that
function. "Put Out The Fire" made rare appearances
in the song, but all of the shows in Japan contain the song along
with "Dragon Attack". "Teo Torriatte" is
included by the end and is an interesting version with no piano and
Freddie singing only the Japanese part of the song with the
audience. Overall Firedance is a good release among
many by Wardour in the past two months, being an improvement over
the older version on Heart Breakers. (GS)
|
