| Review
by Collectors
music reviews
Queen’s short tour of Japan in 1981 consisted
of five shows, all played at the Budokan on February 12, 13, 16, 17, and
18. Teo Torriatte
from Tarantura documents a previously
unreleased third tape source from the forth night that comes from the Mr.
Peach archives. The incomplete first source tape was released in 1995 on
Zoom
Up on Rag Doll (RDM 942019). A complete version coming from
the second source can be found on the CDR Freddie Was Here
on
Masterport (MP-013), released in 2003.
In December 2005, Wardour released the silver
pressed version as
Prime
Jive (Wardour-030) paired with the previous night. The recording
sounds a bit more compressed than previous releases of Mr. Peach tapes and
suffers especially when the band is pushing really hard. Other than that
minor complaint, the recording is still very enjoyable. When compared with
Prime Jiveon Wardour,
Teo Torriatte sounds a good deal
closer to the stage and has a much bigger range of frequencies making this
a definite upgrade to what’s been available before.
The band sounds very tight and Freddie’s
vocals start off very strong. He really pushes for some of the high notes
in the early part of the set with great results. The band drop
“Jailhouse Rock” that served as the opener since the US tour the
previous year and begin straight away with “We Will Rock You (fast)”.
The medley on this tour consists of five songs starting with “Mustafa”
and continues through “Get Down, Make Love”.
A double shot from the
The Game LP
continues with a performance of “Rock It (Prime Jive)” followed by
“Save Me” featuring Brian May on piano for the first half of the tune.
“Now I’m Here” is broken up with “Dragon Attack” played in the
middle. Freddie also encourages some crowd participation before finishing
the track.
Brian May says a few things in Japanese before
“Love Of My Life”. This is the only surviving number from the acoustic
set from previous tours and Freddie lets the audience sing a good portion
of the song by themselves. “Keep Yourself Alive” is played up until
the drum break where Queen gets into a mini-set from the recent LP,
Flash
Gordon.
The
Flash
material is one of the
biggest curiosities from this tour for collectors and also seems to be
enjoyed by the Japanese audience. Aside from what is listed on the cover,
“In The Death Cell” and “Execution Of Flash” were not performed.
May does include a bit of the Japanese “Sakura, Sakura” during his
guitar segment.
The remainder of the show is obviously reserved
for the “home runs”, building the show up to its highest point with
their biggest hits. By “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Mercury’s vocals start
to show signs of strain and he abandons some of the higher parts from here
on out. “Teo Torriatte” is included in the set tonight for the first
time inside this tour and is a great version of one of Queen’s more
obscure numbers.
Tarantura released this in their usual
gate-fold paper sleeve with really nice picture discs and includes
pictures of the master tapes on the inside. In my opinion, this is a much
better alternative to the Wardour source and regardless of the compression
on the tape is another great sounding Mr. Peach recording definitely worth
getting. |
