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Review
by Collectors
music reviews
Queen started their second tour of Japan on March 23rd, 1976 in Nagoya.
A Night At Nagoya is the silver pressed debut of the show using
the incomplete. It is a good to very good, somewhat flat mono
recording capturing most of the show before cutting out after a minute of
“Liar” eliminating most of the song, “In The Lap
Of The Gods…Revisited,” “Now I’m Here,” “Big Spender,”
“Jailhouse Rock” and “God Save The Queen.”
According to the Queen Live website:
“Wardour … may have used a different source tape/copy, as the
last couple seconds of ‘Liar’ do not distort before the recording cuts
out. They have EQ’d it so it’s not so bass-heavy, corrected the speed,
and smoothed out the edit for the tape flip at the beginning of ‘The
Prophet’s Song.’”
The band took a two week break between a tour of the US
and this visit to Japan. Their excitement in visiting Japan again is
very much evident in this enthusiastic performance. Freddie in
particular takes the effort to speak complete sentences in Japanese
past the expected “arigato” and “konichiwa.” The tape picks up
with the taped ”Ladies and gentlemen…a night at the
opera” spoken introduction followed by the “opera section” of
“Bohemian Rhapsody.” The band hits the stage with the hard rock third
section of the piece with segues into “Ogre Battle.”
“It looks like it’s gonna be a fun night tonight”
Freddie shouts before the new song “Sweet Lady,” as song that
doesn’t quite work on record but is a fantastic live piece. The
medley is referred to as ”a medley of four songs from four of our
different albums, and we’re gonna start with a number, I think you know
this one, it’s called ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’” It is one of the
stranger Queen arrangements since it is the opening and closing of
“Bohemian Rhapsody” with snatches of “Killer Queen” and ninety
seconds of “March Of The Black Queen” thrown in the middle.
Afterwards Freddie says: “What can we do for
you my little darlings. It’s time we featured Brian May on the
guitar. Yes, I think you’re gonna like this. This is a song that we
didn’t do last time but we’re gonna do it for you right now. It’s a
number called ‘Brighton Rock.’” The middle guitar solo is
seven minutes long and the track ends with “Son & Daughter.”
“The Prophet’s Song” contains the earliest
known live reference to “Death On Two Legs” during the harmonized
middle section, singing “death on two legs, you’re tearing me
apart, kill joy, bad guy.” The piece segues into “Stone
Cold Crazy.” Afterwards Freddie gives his salute to the
audience, saying: ”Queen would like to drink a special toast
to Nagoya. May you all drink champagne tomorrow for breakfast. Right
now we’d like to do a number … Oh, you understood that one.
Cheeky little thing!”
“Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon” is “a song that
lasts one minute six seconds” (and Freddie is very close). And
finally “Liar” is a song that “we do everytime we come to
Japan” and Freddie encourages Taylor during the drum introduction,
saying “come on blondie!” Wardour supplement the second disc
with two rare interviews taken from Queen’s first trip to Japan.
The normal questions are asked regarding Brian’s guitar and their
favorite musicians. It’s great when labels include rare and hard
to find material like this and include them as bonus. Wardour has
effective use of period photographs on the artwork and overall this is a
very solid effort by the label and is worth having. |
