Review by Collectors
Music Reviews
The pommy bastards in Queen could have been forgiven for completely
ignoring Australia after their disastrous appearance at the Sunbury
Festival in Melbourne in February 1974. Queen returned two years
latter during the Night At The Opera tour for several successful dates in
April 1976, but waited almost a whole decade before returning.
Queen didn’t tour much in 1985, only
stops in Brazil, Japan, and nine dates down under starting with a show in
Auckland, New Zealand on April 13th. Melbourne 1985 is a
rare silver pressing of the third of four show played in Melbourne.
Released in 1998, Killing Floor use a very clear but thin audience
recording. There is a cut at 2:20 in “Is This The World We
Created?” cutting out the latter part of the song. It is otherwise
complete.
The setlist is the same as in all of the
shows on this tour, starting with the taped “Machines” introduction to
the “Tear It Up” bit and “Tie Your Mother Down.” After the
introductions and “Under Pressure” the medley begins with “Somebody
To Love.” Most of the song is played before a serious piano bridge
into “Killer Queen. “
Two verses and the guitar solo give way to
the spectacular piano flourish of “Seven Seas Of Rhye.” Only
ninety seconds of the Queen II track is played before the abrasive guitar
riff of “Keep Yourself Alive” makes its appearance. Their first
hit is played almost in its entirety before Brian May plays the famous
“Son & Daughter” riff as an introduction to “Liar.”
After “Liar” Freddie says, “It’s
nice to be back in Melbourne after nine years. Did anybody see us nine
years ago? After a small smattering of applause he jokes, “You
fucking liars!” The impromptu improvisation, which is normally
tracked separately, is included with “It’s A Hard Life.”
May plays a lyric little melody under
Freddie’s scat vocals. When they finally do start “It’s A Hard
Life” Freddie’s voice sounds very deep, strange and disturbing.
Afterwards Freddie plays his “day-o” vocal games with the audience.
The band play a long and unique introduction to “Dragon Attack.”
May plays the wild introduction of “House Burning Down” by Jimi
Hendrix before they get into the dance tune which in turn segues into
“Now I’m Here.”
May introduces “Is This The World We
Created?” by saying “we’d like to change the mood radically” and
mentioned how “this song just happened late one night in Munich.”
Freddie gives a gorgeous rendition of the piece. “Love Of My
Life” is unique because it lacks the audience participation it enjoyed
for many years. Either the Australians were too shy to sing or
didn’t know they were supposed to sing along, but Freddie sings the
entire song alone.
Afterwards he gets the audience to clap in
rhythm, getting them excited for May’s guitar solo. He starts in
the slow and contemplative sound scape section before playing “Frère
Jacques” and aggressive heavy metal riffing. He leads the band
into the final verse of “‘Brighton Rock,” not noted on the artwork.
The set ends with “Bohemian Rhapsody”
and “Radio Ga Ga” and “I Want To Break Free” start the encore set.
The show closes with great versions of “We Will Rock You” and “We
Are The Champions.”
Melbourne 1985 is packaged in a
double slimline jewel case. The artwork is printed on only one side.
The reverse of each insert is simply white paper. Several years ago
an upgrade was posted online. The silver labels who regularly press
Queen shows have ignored the Australia tapes. This show is
worth an upgrade perhaps in the future as well as the other Australia
shows deserving to be pressed onto silver (perhaps in a box set).
Barring future releases, this is still a good title for the collection.
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