Review from Discogs.
Recorded live at New London Theatre Centre, London, England on
October, 6th, 1977 - Audience recording.
Jailhouse Rock was also played this evening
but is missing on this album.
After doing
the video shoot for We Are The Champions with members of the fan club in
the audience, the band played an unexpected set afterwards.
The event was MC'd by Bob Harris, who
announced to the fans before the video shoot that the band would play a
special set just for them after a few takes of Champions.
The fans are excited beyond belief by this
proclamation, as it is a complete surprise to them. Between takes, Bob
says there are extra cameras present to film a
Queen documentary to
be seen around Christmas or in the new year, but the documentary would
never make it past the final editing stage.
1977 was a year of
transition for Queen, and this unique live set gives a very telling
glimpse of where the band are heading.
Sitting at the
piano before Somebody To Love, Freddie says, "I must say, this is more
interesting than doing Earls Court, I think," much to the delight of the
few hundred
on
hand (most of whom probably attended the Earls Court shows!). Brian
messes up the queue back into the song after Freddie's vocal solo and
remarks
afterwards that it was "A little rusty there, I think." Freddie then
says, "It's right into the microphone," perhaps indicating that
shouldn't have been said out loud.
He quickly changes the subject and asks what
the audience would like to hear next. Amongst the shouts are Liar, Great
King Rat, Stone Cold Crazy,
even the non-album track Hangman - and
Freddie saying with a chuckle, "We've done We Are The Champions!"
The loose and
experimental version of White Man / The Prophet's Song sounds much more
like the middle section of (the not-yet-released)
Get Down Make Love because it's Brian's
guitar that has the harmonization effects rather than Freddie's voice.
This is the first time Brian would use the EBow on stage.
After a superb
version of Liar, the band played the first half of Bohemian Rhapsody.
After May's guitar solo, he launches right into Now I'm Here since
backing
tapes
aren't being used at this show. This is notably the first time the high
guitar parts aren't heard after "I'm just a" on playback (until now the
sample from the
album was triggered by the front-of-house
sound engineer).
Overall the
band are in fine form, and they are clearly happy to give the fan club
members a great set. Also worth noting is that this is undoubtedly the
greatest live
version of See What A Fool I've Been. Freddie
sings it passionately and aggressively, a complete 180 from the campy
delivery of the studio version.
His voice is much more accomplished, having
blossomed greatly in the year and a half since they had last played the
song. This would turn out to be the final
performance of the
Seven Seas Of Rhye B-side. |
