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For several years, in writing A Night At The Opera and its
cousin A Day At The Races, they were focused upon elaborate
productions, multi-layered tracks and bizarre arrangements that were
revolutionary at the time. The May 30th Glasgow show occurs
right at the cusp of another rethinking in artistic direction.
Having taken complex as far as they could, they would soon strip
down their sound for more arena-rock friendly arrangements. A
germ was planted the previous evening at Bingley Hall in
Stafford when the enthusiastic audience spontaneously sung ”You’ll Never
Walk Alone” giving Brian May the idea to write “We Will Rock
You,” a song whose purpose to inspire audience
participation.
This show in Glasgow is considered to be one of the legendary Queen
concerts. Glasgow audiences are famous for forcing bands to
rise to the occasion and deliver stellar performances and Queen
don’t disappoint with a tight, energetic and charismatic
performance. The tape used was first pressed on silver many
years ago on A Day At The Apollo (Gypsy Eye GE
145/146). The sound is a bit distant but very clear and
enjoyable. Gypsy Eye used a tape that had intentional cuts in
“Keep Yourself Alive” and cut out during “Jailhouse
Rock” eliminating “God Save The Queen.” Wardour use
the same tape but also a second generation copy sounding a bit
more dull to fill in the twenty second gap in “Keep
Yourself Alive” from 1:06 to 1:26 and cuts in again 1:28 into
“Jailhouse Rock” offering the final four minutes of and “God
Save The Queen.” The edits are competent (except for
the when the lower generation cuts back in “Keep
Yourself Alive” which is very abrupt). The virtue is
that Wardour offer, for the first time on silver, the complete show.
The album’s regal opening fanfare is played
over the PA before they hit the stage with “Tie Your Mother
Down,” following the album’s sequence. The new song segues
into the older “Ogre Battle” and Freddie greets the audience,
saying, “Thank you, good evening everybody! Are you all
ready for rock and roll tonight! We’re gonna give it to you.
It’s great to be back in Glasgow thank you for such a lovely
welcome. We have a lot of music to play for you tonight…a
lot of the heavier stuff and some of the quieter stuff.”
Brian May plays a tremendous solo in “White Queen,” the first of
many over the two hour show which Glasgow loudly acknowledges. ”That
is a song off of Queen II. Do you remember that?
this is a more recent song from A Day At The Races and was
released as a single.” They play “Somebody To Love,”
omitting the opening chorus and starting with the piano melody right
before the first verse. On later tours Freddie would
sing the beginning.
The medley includes songs from the last three
albums starting with “Killer Queen.” Perfume comes
“naturally from Glasgow” and they play through the guitar solo
before going into “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy.” “The
Millionaire Waltz” is one of their most adventurous songs and the
transition into “You’re My Best Friend” is rather abrupt.
“Bring Back That Leroy Brown” had been the closing number in the
medley for several years up to this point and would be dropped after
this tour. This is one of the last times they ever played it
live. “You want something light or something heavy?” Freddie
asked afterwards. The overwhelming vote is for the heavy.
“We know you too well” he quips before intorducting ”Death
On Two Legs” as something “just recently included to
the set…We’ll do ‘Liar’ as well” Freddie says in response
to a request. The entire song is played and in later tours,
when it would introduce the medley, it would be shortened.
‘Sweet Lady” is played for the final known
time in this show and “Brighton Rock” is more than fourteen
minutes long. It contains an interesting May solo where he
sustains the notes contrasts the heavy with the light, delicate and
bizarre. The solo approaches what he’ll do later in “Get
Down, Make Love” written later that year and ends with a bit of
“Son And Daughter” before going into the final verse.
It’s a great performance and one of the best captured on
tape.
“‘39″ is the first tentative step
towards having a full blown acoustic set that many bands would be
doing at this time. “You Take My Breath Away” features
Freddie alone at the piano and although sweet lacks the mystery of
the studio version including the frightening coda at the end, no way
to duplicate that on stage. They play a melding of May’s two
giant compositions from the latest two albums. “White
Man” (the juvenile meditation on the American Indian) leads into
Freddie’s vocal games before segueing into the finale of “The Prophet’s Song.”
“Keep Yourself Alive” and “Stone Cold Crazy” are
delivered at a furious pace before the show slows for “In The Lap
Of The Gods…Revisited.” The encore section is
interesting for the rare performance of Bo Diddley’s “I’m A
Man” (in contrast to Muddy Waters’ cover “Mannish Boy”
released two months after the original). This is one of the
best Queen concerts and having it on silver complete makes this a
tremendous release on Wardour.
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