| Review by Collectors
Music Review
Queen’s
Kampuchea show remains the most vivid and accessible document from a
strangely obscure tour. The UK Crazy tour in late 1979 saw the band
play in smaller venues throughout the country including six shows at the
end of the tour in London, each in a different venue: Lyceum
Ballroom, Rainbow Theatre, Purley Tiffany’s, Tottenham Mayfair, Lewisham
Odeon, and Alexandra Palace (seven months before it caught fire).
The band agreed to tack
one more show onto the schedule for the event, playing in the Hammersmith
Odeon on Boxing Day. They were the only act to play on a bill alone
and did not participate in the Rochestra ending with McCartney on
December 29th. Each of the four shows were both filmed and
professionally recorded. The film Concert For Kampuchea
released in August 1980 with two Queen tracks, “Now I’m Here”
and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”
In April an LP was
released Concerts for the People of Kampuchea including
one Queen song, “Now I’m Here.” More footage was used for the
German TV special but unfortunately the entire show hasn’t surfaced from
these sources and have been out of print for twenty-five years.
Crazy Tour In London was
released on LP in 1980. This is missing ”Keep Yourself
Alive,” the guitar solo, and the “Brighton Rock” reprise.
“Silent Night,” played during the guitar solo, is placed at the
beginning of the show. This show can also be found on the vinyl
Crazy Duck in 1984 which utilizes the television
soundtrack. In 1999 Crazy Tour In London was pressed
onto silver disc from a vinyl copy and was released complete with
cardboard sleeve duplicating the original artwork. Since it was
copied from vinyl, this has the same defects as the original vinyl.
Complete
Kampuchea Concert (Gypsy Eye GE-137/138) was released by
Gypsy Eye in 2000. They use the same audience recording but a copy
that sounds closer to the master tape. It is much more clear and all
of the songs are in their proper sequence. There are small cuts
after ”Save Me” and ”Brighton Rock” (at least), but
there are no cuts in the music and this is virtually the complete show.
Eleven years later in late
2011 Master Stroke produced what looks like the definitive package.
The two audio discs contain the complete show and a DVD has the complete
footage along with assembled slide show footage for continuity.
Instead of utilizing the
audience tape only for the audio discs, Master Stroke use the soundboard,
video soundtrack and audience tapes to complete the show. It is an
attempt to present the show from the best available sources and sometimes
it is done very well, but this one is not. The sources change
frequently, and the difference in tape speeds between the various sources
take a few seconds to adjust. It’s a strange effect and is very
distracting.
Given the level of
playing, Freddie’s impeccable voice, and the meaning behind the show,
Queen’s final concert of the 70′s stands as not only the greatest
of their career but among the best ever. Whatever doubts the band
may have had after Jazz were dispelled by the success of the latest single
“Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” and this confidence would be
carried into their next album The Game. To have such
a sublime performance in an excellent sounding tape is a tremendous
blessing to collectors.
The set list is based upon
the previous tour. The tape picks up with the opening electronic
tone rising in pitch and with the thunder cracks the band hits the stage
with a the cover tune “Jailhouse Rock,” their old encore which
was added to the opening salvo after the first week. “How are
you rock and rollers? Are you having a good Christmas? You
feel crazy? Okay let’s do some more” Freddie greets the audience
before “Let Me Entertain You.” This is a song destined to be a
great opener but curiously was only played in the second in it’s short
life span.
After “Somebody To
Love” Freddie prattles on saying, “I know this feels like a Cecil
B. DeMille production of the Ten Commandments tonight but don’t
worry about the cameramen. Right now we’d like to do a song…my god
it’s quiet in here. Is it always like this at Hammersmith?
Are you supposed to be a sophisticated crowd?”
The audience responds and cheers loudly before going
into “If You Can’t Beat Them.” The early medley was
changed from the previous tour. “Mustapha” made small
cameos but on the Crazy tour is sung complete for the first time and
“Bicycle Race” is dropped, never to appear live again.
“For those of you who don’t know, this night brings
us to the end of the tour. I don’t care. We’re gonna be
here all the time, don’t worry about it” Freddie says before their
latest single “Save Me.” Two songs, “Don’t Stop Me Now”
and “Spread Your Wings” make their last live appearance and the latter
is among the best versions ever of the song.
Brian May speaks about the point of the show afterwards
saying, “As you may know this is a special night for charity for the
people of Kampuchea.” The acoustic set is limited to only two
songs. “Keep Yourself Alive” is expanded to include not only a
drum solo, but May’s guitar solo including “Silent Night” for the
Christmas season. They don’t return to the song but instead end
with the closing verse of “Brighton Rock” in a nice surprise.
“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” was their hit
single and is received so ecstatically that the audience continue singing
the chorus even after the song is over. The band play along and
accompany the singing mob before moving right into “Bohemian
Rhapsody.”
“Sheer Heart Attack” is the first encore and the
audience applaud loudly when Freddie throws over the amplifier stack and
the show ends with “We Will Rock You” (sung from the shoulders of
Superman) and “We Are The Champions.”
The DVD contains all of the
known pro-footage of the gig and was released almost a decade ago on Live
Crazy 1979 (Digital Queen Archive DQA-001V DVD). Master
Stroke completes the show with footage from Munich and Paris early in the
year and with slide shows (like during “Silent Night”) which has no
other footage.
As a bonus, the label
includes several minutes of very rare amateur shot footage of Freddie with
the Royal Ballet in October 1979. The first routine, lasting about
two minutes, features Freddie singing to an orchestral arrangement of
“Bohemian Rhapsody” and dancing a routine almost identical to the one
featured in the “I Want To Break Free” video several years later.
The final ninety seconds shows Freddie singing “Crazy Little Thing
Called Love” in front of several dancers.
Ultimately, Play The
Silent Night is a good, but not great effort. The editing on
the audio really wasn’t needed in the first place. But if they
really wanted to edit all the sources together, they could have done a
better job of it. The DVD isn’t bad at all, and the bonus footage
is extraordinarily rare and great to have.
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