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Review
by Collectors
music reviews
Queen’s final show on their US Day At The Races tour in Seattle
is perhaps their most bootlegged tape. It is a great sounding
recording of almost the entire concert. It surfaced on
vinyl soon after the gig on the famous Duck Soup (Rodan
Records SLA 0007) with about half of the show. P.N.W. Live
is another well known vinyl title with this show which was copied under Pacific
North Western and as Mania, with a pic from the Game
era on the front cover.
The earliest Queen bootleg CDs also documented this
tape with two releases in 1991. In The Lap Of The Queen
(Chapter One CO 25153) and Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting
(Buy or Die BOD CD 214), both copied from vinyl. P.N.W.
(Outside 002), the semi-legal Live USA (IMRAT IMT
900.076) and Live In USA 1977 (HL CD 014) are other well known
titles. Duck Soup (SLA 007) was also included in a batch of
Queen silvers released in 2000 from Japan which copied the original
(scratchy) vinyls and packaged in handsome duplicate-LP covers (other
titles from these people include King’s Favorite, Crazy
Tour and Queen’s Last Stand 1985.)
While all the compact disc releases were sourced from vinyl, the master
cassette surfaced recently and is the source for A Day At Seattle on
Wardour. Since tapes from this tour are scarce it is valuable
just for existing, but the sound quality makes it very
desirable. It is clear and enjoyable with considerable
dynamics.
And the performance is inspired.
Touring with Thin Lizzy, this was a tour which brought them a
step higher in popularity and saw them play in Madison Square Garden
in New York for the first time. Seattle was the final US show
and with the wild audience comes across as inspired. The set they
play is the standard one with an emphasis upon the new album
including the taped intro leading into “Tie Your Mother Down.”
The following two songs, “Ogre Battle” and “White Queen” are two
oldies that would soon be dropped from the live act and the audience
sounds a bit impatient during the slower number. Freddie seems to
notice too as he remarks, “Thank you for listening patiently through
that song.”
“Somebody To Love” was the first single off of the album, released the
previous November. It was a bigger hit in the UK where it peaked at
#2, but it spent fifteen weeks on the charts in the US peaking at
#13. Afterwards Brian May gives his greeting, saying, “I hope
you’re all sitting comfortably, because we’ll have a lot of different
things for you. Thank you for making that one a hit up here. We appreciate
that. Ok, we’re gonna have some fun. We’re gonna do a medley of some
things which we hope you’ll recognize. It begins like this.”
The medley, a feature of all but one of Queen’s
tours, begins with “Killer Queen” and includes “The Millionaire
Waltz,” “You’re My Best Friend” and ends with “Bring Back That
Leroy Brown.” This is perhaps the most uninspired of them all and
doesn’t hold together well at all. When they will go on to play
Europe they’ll add “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy” to the medley (a
song never played in the states). “Sweet Lady,” which followed
the medley in many shows on this tour is dropped and they continue with
“Brighton Rock” and May’s long guitar solo. They play it
straight with the return to the third verse instead of segueing into
“Son & Daughter” like on previous tours.
“‘39″ is the first time the played an
acoustic number on stage and Freddie makes a big deal about it afterwards,
saying, ”As you can gather, we like to try out the acoustic stuff
and all the different styles that you hear on the albums. I just hope you
don’t mind. I know we started off with rock and roll, but I think
we’ve matured since then.” He sounds almost apologetic,
recalling his defense of Hot Space at Milton Keynes five years
later. “You Take My Breath Away” is a new song that
is played only on this tour and live versions of it are special,
especially in this sound quality.
May’s two epics, “White Man” and “The
Prophet’s Song” are melted into one long number with Freddie’s vocal
gymnastics int he middle. “Keep Yourself Alive” has a short drum
solo, one that would be expanded on in future tours and the set ends with
“In The Lap Of The Gods…Revisited.” “Now I’m Here” is
the first encore and the rock and roll medley closes out the show and they
cover Elton John’s “Saturday’s Alright For Fighting” for the first
time live. The closing “God Save The Queen” is cut from the
tape. A Day At Seattle is the first time this show has been
released in almost ten years and the first time from the original tape in
more than thirty. This is an essential Queen performance and
release. |
