Review
by Collectors
music
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Early Battle, from the CDR label
Breakdown, is a very good early document taken from Queen’s first visit
to the US in support of Queen II. Queen was the opener for Mott The Hoople
so the show is more compact than the UK dates from earlier in the year. It
is a very good sounding source that borders on being excellent at times
and contains a rare performance of “See What A Fool I’ve Been” in
place of “Great King Rat”. Brian mentions Portland after “Ogre
Battle” authenticating the source. There are several cuts between tracks
but all songs seem virtually complete. Queen delivers a fired up very
enjoyable sounding performance.
This tape suffers from some slight speed fluctuations
probably from tape stretching. The first part of the show from
“Procession” through “See What A Fool” runs fairly close to the
proper speed but the rest of the tape, starting with “Liar”, runs
closer to 5% fast with additional tape speed issues that do improve as the
show progresses. “Son And Daughter” contains some of Brian May’s
guitar work that would later make its appearance in “Brighton Rock” on
their third LP, Sheer Heart Attack.
Freddie says “you’re wonderful, this is our first
time here and we’ll have to come back” before the “Big Spender”
medley which sounds like it switches to a different source and is slightly
muffled compared to the rest of the show. It is possible that the taper
moved thinking the set was over and was in a different spot for this.
There is a strange noise on the tape that resembles a bird call or bird
whistle that is present on both sources. Luckily, it only occurs in
between songs and occasionally at the very start or finish of songs and
doesn’t interrupt the performances. The back cover lists “Shake Rattle
And Roll” as part of the medley but it is actually “Bama Lama Bama
Lou”, a common second encore for this era.
This performance from Portland is a great early Queen
concert but unfortunately not the definitive release due to the various
tape speed issues. Packaging is the typical one sided artwork and is more
than sufficient for a CDR release. Hopefully, one of the silver Queen
labels will present a more definitive version in the future as early stuff
like this deserves better coverage. |
