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Review
by
Collectors
music reviews
Queen toured Japan twice in their early days in 1975 and 1976, but
had ignored the nation with some of their most rapid fans for more
than three years, missing the far east for the Day At
The Races and News Of The World tours. To make up
for the lapse Queen gave them a three-week long tour between April 13th
and May 6th with fifteen total concerts scattered all throughout the
country. They played five shows in the capital and two in Osaka, and
appeared in cities not usually visited by big British bands like Sapparo,
Yamaguchi, and Kanazawa. All but three, April 13th in
Tokyo, April 27th in Kobe, and April 28 in Nagoya, have at least a partial
audience recording circulating. No soundboards are known to circulate
although all of the concerts were professionally taped for the official
live album released later that summer. Most of them were also
filmed and the video for "Love Of My Life" contains footage from
one of the Tokyo shows (although the audio comes from Frankfurt as does
the LP). Pride And Joy on Wardour collects two audio and
one video recording from their Live Killers tour of Japan. None
of the material is brand new but this is their debut on a commercial
release and Wardour have remixed these tapes to present the shows in the
best possible sound quality.
The first
two discs cover the April 14th show. This is the second date of the
tour and Freddie's voice is in good, but not great, shape. Musically
this is virtually the complete show with only a cut during the
guitar solo in "Brighton Rock". After the audience cheers
die down at the beginning, the sound quality improves from fair to being
very good and clear. There are some muffles in the tape like during
"I'm In Love With My Car" but nothing too serious. It is
in mono and the spectrum of frequencies is very narrow but it presents a
good and vivid account of the show that night. "If You Can't
Beat Them" was alternated with "Fat Bottom Girls" on different
nights and is played on this evening. Freddie introduces "Death
On Two Legs" by saying, "
we call him motherfucker. What do you say in Japanese? Well,
you get the gist of it..." "Spread Your Wings" is
spectacularly played and this is one of the last times for the song in
Japan. The three song acoustic set is the longest they ever played
in and included
Brian May introducing the band before the little stage is lowered before
"'39". "Brighton Rock" includes May's
pyrotechnic guitar solo and Taylor's turn on the tympani.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" quite rightly is the final song with
"Tie Your Mother Down" and "Sheer Heart Attack" the
first two encores before the "We Will Rock You" and "We Are
The Champions" finale.
The
April 23rd show was the first of the final three in Tokyo and occurred
after a two-night trip to Osaka. The mono audience tape is fair to
good sounding very distant from the stage. Audience noises, cheers
and whistles often drown out the music making it hard to hear.
Hardcore collectors will enjoy this tape since the concert is great, but
the sound quality is rough going for the casual. "Fat Bottomed
Girls" replaces "If You Can't Beat Them" and "Teo
Torriatte" replaces "Spread Your Wings" in the set list and
this is one of the first times the track was ever played and would be
featured in future tours of Japan. Freddie's voice continually
deteriorated on this tour and is noticeably worse than the previous
week although he is not nearly as bad as on the April 25 show. The
show really heats up with one of the better medleys played in Japan.
"Death On Two Legs" is especially venomous and this is one of
the best versions of "Bicycle Race". "Don't Stop Me
Now" sounds very energetic although it is hard to enjoy with
the poor sound quality. May plays a very heavy metal guitar solo in
"Brighton Rock".
The DVD
contains a thirty-two minute television broadcast from the April 25th
concert. Fifteen minutes of this footage was broadcast in Japanese
television in the '80's but in 2002 almost double was broadcast on
television. According to the label this is an upgrade of the air
check version done at a high rate transfer. The video quality is
extremely good and the sound quality is excellent and it is great to
have such rare footage commercially available. The songs are
mostly edited in one way or another but what is present is great.
The most spectacular visual is seeing Freddie sitting on the shoulders of
Superman dressed in a campy red-rhinestone studded short suit! Pride
And Joy is Wardour's third release from this era following Dreamer's
Ball, with the audience recording of the April 25th Tokyo show, and Ultimate
Dreamer with the two Osaka shows from April 19th and 20th. All
three titles derive from "Dreamer's Ball" in one-way or another
and they even printed the lyrics to the song on the inside cover. It
can be assumed that song is popular in Japan. It is a great song and
was played only on these tours so it counts as somewhat of a rarity.
It comes encased in a fatboy jewel case with glossy color inserts and is
limited to only three hundred copies worldwide. (GS)
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