Review
by
Collectors
music reviews
At
least three times in Queen's history they called upon their fans through
the Official International Queen Fan Club to participate in a video shoot.
The first was on October 6th, 1977 for "We Are The Champions",
the second for "Radio Ga Ga" on November 23rd & 24th,
1983, and the third for "Friends Will Be Friends" on May
15th, 1986 (itself, both song and video, a sequel of sorts for "We
Are The Champions"). Video shoots are notoriously long and
boring because many different takes have to be shot and actions
must be repeated over and over. It is bad enough for the actors, but
for the extras it can be especially difficult since they are not involved
in the principle action. To reward the fans Queen played an
hour-long concert that was thankfully captured by several audience
members. The older source had circulated for many years and is poor
quality. Champions Shoot on Wardour is the brand new
source that has recently surfaced.
It
is much better quality than the older source being very close to the stage
and capturing the warmth of the performance. Compared to the older
source it is much more complete with only the first three takes omitted.
Queen mimed to the studio track being played over the PA so there wouldn't
be anything interesting. There are small cuts after "The
Prophet's Song" and "Jailhouse Rock" but no music is
missing. Whispering Bob Harris, the host of "The Old Grey
Whistle Test", mumbles at the beginning to explain the dynamics
of the shoot. The audience was encouraged to act enthusiastic and
wave banners. Harris then explains the band will play a special show
for them. The third track on this release, "We Are The
Champions", is video shoot number number four and is the studio track
being played so the cameras can capture crowd shots and footage for a
documentary. Queen play "Tie Your Mother Down"
immediately at the song's conclusion and Freddie thanks everybody for
coming as the band begins "Keep Yourself Alive".
"Somebody
To Love" is introduced as
"something we did at Earl's Court, I think".
"What do you want next? We've done 'We Are The
Champions'....'Hangman'?...We'll do a song written by Brian from the A
Day At The Races album, it's called 'White Man'" and is played
as a medley with "The Prophet's Song", the arrangement they used
on stage at that time. There is a cut in the tape following this
number. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is only the first third of the
song which segues seamlessly with "Now I'm Here" after a loud
Roger Taylor gong smash. "Jailhouse Rock" with Freddie
saying bye bye "just like Shirley Bassey" closes the set and a
rare version of "See What A Fool I've Been" is played for the
encore after the audience chants, "bring out the chicken".
This is a fascinating, off-the-wall document revealing the band's
close relationship with their fans. This might not be an essential
document to own but it certainly is interesting and the reason
why bootlegs exist in the first place.
Wardour
and its related labels have been regularly issuing bonus cdrs and dvdrs
with their titles and Champions Shoot comes with a one dvdr set Houston
1977. This is the same video that surfaced last year of the
long rumored and famous show at the Summit and released by the DQA label
on Houston Rock. This particular title by Wardour was
produced and issued last December as a free bonus over a particular
weekend at certain retail outlets in the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo.
There is no improvement in video or sound quality so nothing is gained.
This is an essential video to own ("Melancholy Blues" was
released as a single from this show) and this is a good opportunity to own
it for free. Champions Shoot is produced with the glossy
paper used by the latest Wardour releases and is limited to only
three hundred copies. (GS) |
