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Review
by Bootleg
Encyclopedia
Queen waited four months between ending the News Of The World
North American tour before playing in Europe. The first show was in
Stockholm on April 12th and was released on the silver title Big
Disgrace (GE-254/255) on Gypsy Eye, one of their last titles
before converting into the cdr label Breakdown. The second
concert of the tour at the Falkoner Theatre in Denmark is presented on Denmark
News, one of two recent Wardour releases from the first two weeks of
this tour. Denmark was released previously on Rock 'n'
Roll, Tonight, Okay!! on Gypsy Eye (GE-123/124) which uses a high
generation copy of the common tape source. Denmark News uses
a source closer to the master and sounds much more full with more
dynamics. It is a significant improvement of Gypsy Eye. There
are several very small cuts on the tape after "Spread Your
Wings", "The Prophet's Song", "Tie Your Mother
Down", "We Are The Champions", and "Sheer Heart
Attack" but no music is lost. Perhaps the taper was checking
the tape between songs. There is also a slight tape wobble
during "We Are The Champions" and the encores. Some claim
this is the best sounding tape from the entire European News Of
The World tour that exists. The venue is small and wasn't sold
out (Freddie complains about the latter during the show), but helped the
taper produce a highly enjoyable tape with a wonderful live sound to it.
The
set list for the spring tour was similar to the North American tour.
"It's Late", which was rarely played before, now became a
regular inclusion replacing "Liar", which would only appear in
the second Rotterdam and first London concerts. "Now I'm
Here" on the earlier tour was segued directly with the guitar solo
with no return to "The Prophet's Song". In Europe it has
been moved to before the short acoustic set and played as an
independent number with the guitar solo returning to "The Prophet's
Song". Being the second night Freddie is in great voice.
"We're
gonna have a good rock and roll night tonight, okay" Freddie says
before asking the audience for any requests and introducing the three
minute long "Brighton Rock". Brian introduces
"Somebody To Love" and the Copenhagen audience claps along loudly
and will throughout the night. Before the medley Freddie says, "We're
gonna do an encore...we have a lot of rock and roll tonight".
The medley remains the same as in North America with songs from the
previous three albums and "Get Down Make Love" from the new one.
It is curious that in every live tape Freddie forgets the second line in
"Good Old Fashioned Loverboy" and scats instead of singing
"Set my alarm, turn on my charm". After "You're My
Best Friend" Freddie comments that Copenhagen is the only
audience in the world that claps along with every song and introduces
"Spread Your Wings" as their latest single written by John
Deacon.
The acoustic
set is two songs long and Brian introduces "'39" as "something
to clap along to." Freddie introduces "My Melancholy
Blues" as a quiet number from the new album and is accompanied by
loud whistles and yet more rhythmic clapping from the audience. The
rest of the show is dominated by faster and heavier songs with the
"White Man" / "The Prophet's Song" lasting almost
twenty minutes, including Freddie's vocal gymnastics with the harmonizer
and May's long "Brighton Rock" solo. The set ends with the
big hits from the latest album "We Will Rock You" and "We
Are The Champions". The slow version of the former never
captures the fun of the studio version and the band forget time signatures
in this show almost leading to a breakdown but recover to deliver a great
version of "We Are The Champions". "Sheer Heart
Attack" is the first encore and begins with Roger Taylor's loud shout
of "rock and roll". "Jailhouse Rock" is the
final encore and is extended to almost five minutes long. Denmark
News was released at the same time as Vienna Waltz with the
tape of the May 2nd Vienna tape. It is curious Wardour chose to
duplicate two shows that have already been issued by Gypsy Eye, but both
are vast improvements and are two of the best tapes from this era. They
use high class glossy paper inserts with photos from the tour superimposed
over the Kelly Freas robot monster from the News Of The World album
cover. It is limited to three hundred copies and is an excellent
release in the recent spate of Queen activity by the Wardour label. (GS)
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