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Collectors music reviews
Invite You To A Christmas Night is the latest
incarnation of the popular Hammersmith Odeon Christmas Eve performance.
It contains an audio CD with the complete radio broadcast in excellent
quality and a DVD with two versions of the video.
For Queen recordings the excellent sounding BBC
broadcasts from their Christmas Eve concert at the Hammersmith Odeon in
1975 is the most popular with the greatest number of releases and
variations. The earliest vinyl edition of this tape, and one of the
first Queen bootlegs, is Command Performance (TAKRL 1997).
This was taped off of the radio and contains the show except for part of
“Now I’m Here,” “White Queen,” “Bring Back That Leroy
Brown,” and the encore rock and roll medley.
Royal Rock US (TAKRL 927) is a re-release of Command
Performance although it claims to be from Budokan. “Brighton
Rock,” “Son And Daughter,” “Keep Yourself Alive” and “Liar”
appear on Tokyo Rampage (TKRWM 1801) and Halfpence (Buckingham
Quality Records EEN-98), its copy Black & White (EEN-98), Live
At Budokan Hall Tokyo, and Keep Yourself Alive - Happy Christmas Freddy
are other vinyl releases with material from this show.
The first compact disc releases utilize the vinyl such
as X-Mas 1975 (Stoned Records SR 012), a 1989 copy of Command
Performance. Killers (Flashback 09.90.0130) 1990 has
“White Queen” along with various BBC sessions. In 1991 Merry
Christmas (Great Dane Records GDR CD 9108) was issued with about
fifty minutes of the show. the same year London 1975
(Golden Stars FBCD 1146) was released.
You’re My Best Friend (On Stage ON CD
12030) came out in 1992 with “Ogre Battle,” “White Queen,” “See
What A Fool I’ve Been,” “Liar,” and “In The Lap Of The
Gods…Revisited” along with various tracks from the 1979 Killers tour.
“Brighton Rock” and “Son & Daughter” can be found on We
Will Rock You (On Stage CD 1218) along with tracks from the Live
Killers.
Goodbye (Never End 1122) appeared in 1992
contains a fair amount of this tape along with various 1973 BBC sessions
from the Queen At The Beeb official release and an hour of the
May 11, 1985 Tokyo video. The same year saw the release of both Rhapsody
In Red (Buccaneer Records Buc 033) with an incomplete version of the
Hammersmith Odeon show and various BBC sessions and Eve Of Christmas
(Turtle Records 256).
The following year saw two releases from Australia; We
Will Rock You Vol. 1 (Banana BAN 037-A), which is not the complete
show and says it’s from 1974, and Live (vol. 1) (Joker JOK
015-A). The On Stage label from Italy visited the show again with Remember
Freddie (On Stage ON 2214), a three-disc release with various tapes
and several songs from this show.
In 1994 Freddie Mercury Is Alive (World
Records CD 001/2) came out containing the same fifty minute tape along
with 1977 BBC broadcast and some Hot Space tour material.
The same year Dynamic Live: Now I’m Here, We Are The Champions
(Dynamic Live DP 36) surfaced with this show and several tracks from one
of the 1986 Wembley shows. Two years later The Royal Countdown
(JAG 002) was released which claims this tape to be from the Golders Green
Hippodrome on April 21st, 1974.
Rogues And Scandals (Kings Road QR 10001) has
“Keep Yourself Alive,” “Bring Back That Leroy Brown,” and “White
Queen” and the encore medley along with tracks from Golders Green 1973.
White Queen Night (Gypsy Eye 134) came out of Japan in 1999 and
presented a more complete version of the show by combining a tape from the
radio broadcast and the rock and roll medley from the television
broadcast.
The latest release is A
Very Special Christmas - The Definitive Edition (Godfather GF
212/213) which is very similar to Master Stroke by presenting both
audio and video in one package.
The first contains the concert, and the second the 2009
BBC broadcast with Bob Harris narrating the historic setting. The
second telecast also has the audio for the encore, missing from the
orginal telecast, edited with various photographs to provide some kind of
continuity. It’s the same tape found on Legendary
Christmas Concert 1975 (no label).
The special Christmas Eve show was scheduled a week after the final
show in Glasgow of the Night At The Opera UK tour with the
intention of being filmed, recorded, and broadcast on BBC radio and
television.
The set list was changed somewhat from the other
concerts on the tour. The opening tape containing an orchestra
tuning, Kenny Everett speaking and the operatic middle to “Bohemian
Rhapsody” is dropped (or at least doesn’t appear on the extant tapes)
and the opening number is not “Ogre Battle” but “Now I’m Here.”
The Sheer Heart Attack number was used as the
first encore on the tour but the band may have bumped it to the first song
because it was a minor hit and they perhaps wanted to begin the show with
a more familiar song. In addition to this change, three songs,
“Sweet Lady,” “Flick Of The Wrist,” and “Stone Cold Crazy”
were dropped altogether.
“Now I’m Here” is played straight with no
embellishments as it would be later on in their live career, but since it
is a mid-tempo rocker it lacks excitement. “It looks really pretty
here tonight…we’re now gonna take you to the battlefield” before an
exciting version of “Ogre Battle.”
Even without the visual there is tremendous energy
being supplied, but the video looks great with Freddie throwing imaginary
flash bombs on stage and the primitive, yet effective light show.
After “Ogre Battle” Freddie says, “Right now Queen would like to
drink a special toast to everybody here, all the viewers. So cheers!”
That he actually says “Christmas toast” to
“everybody here, all the viewers” is edited out of the radio
broadcast. The second edit is very awkward and raises questions why
it was done in the first place. “White Queen (As It Began)” is
introduced as “a delicate little number” and is followed by a “tasty
little medley.” This piece represents Queen’s first compromise
in bringing their biggest hit to the stage with the unplayable operatic
middle section by omitting the middle and using the beginning and end as
bookends of a medley.
“Killer Queen” was their previous biggest hit and
was always played as part of a medley. “The March Of The Black
Queen” is itself a multi-sectioned piece with only the final heavy
section appearing live onstage, and Freddie’s mic cuts out at the very
beginning of that piece. There is an obvious cut before “Bring
Back That Leroy Brown” and it is played as a short instrumental except
for “my cutie pie” in the middle and “bring bad Leroy back…I want
him back.”
Brian May’s solo spot follow with a nine-minute
version of “Brighton Rock.” The guitar solo seems to hint at the
Girls Scout song “The More We Get Together” before the song segues
into the final verse of “Son & Daughter.”
Freddie encourages everybody to sing along in the
choruses during “Keep Yourself Alive” and continues by saying, “give
us a helping hand, you can take your clothes off.” Before
“Liar” Freddie says, “And now a special edition of a little number
called ‘Liar.’” The fact it is really a “special Christmas
edition” is edited from this tape.
Roger has a heavy drum workout in the song’s
introduction and Freddie comes in a bit too early for the final verse.
Brian acknowledges the party atmosphere and thanks the audience before the
set’s closer “In The Lap Of The Gods…Revisited.” Before the
rock and roll medley Taylor says, “Thanks for a fab year. We’re gonna
do some rock and roll.” His Christmas greeting is edited out.
The video reveals him wearing a rainbow colored wig during this part of
the show and Freddie wearing a kimono.
“Seven Seas Of Rhye” is introduced as something
they forgot to play in the regular set and the music ends with “See What
A Fool I’ve Been,” one of their few effective blues numbers.
Footage for these two songs don’t exist because, so the story goes, the
BBC cameramen didn’t know they were coming back out. Some doubt
this story however and if it would be an event if it does ever surface in
the future.
Invite You To A Christmas Night is a flawless
presentation of very common tapes. Nothing here is new, but it’s
convenient to have everything in one title. Hopefully Master Stroke
will continue to release titles after reissuing the common and obvious
tapes and be a little more adventurous. |
