Queen: The Complete Works (107 page)

The band had decided to record their first live album during these European shows (Brian even stated at the Belgian show on 26 January, “I think I should tell you an interesting fact. We’re thinking of making a live album, and this is the first night we’ve ever recorded for a live album, so I hope you make a nice little noise, as you are”), with several also being filmed for promotional use on local television channels. Most of the shows, as dictates Murphy’s law, weren’t flawless, and, because the band wanted to avoid overdubs on the eventual release, a collection of songs from various shows was assembled, with most culled from German dates. The lack of specific credits on the Live Killers album has inevitably led to speculation as to where each song was recorded and on which date; the most convincing suppositions are contained on Bob Wegner’s website, which is credited at the end of this book and deserves to be a book of its own.

JAZZ JAPANESE TOUR

13 APRIL TO 6 MAY 1979

Musicians:
John Deacon
(bass guitar, fretless bass on ‘’39’)
, Brian May
(guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar on ‘Love Of My Life’ and ‘’39’)
, Freddie Mercury
(vocals, piano, maracas, tambourine)
, Roger Taylor
(drums, vocals, bass drum and tambourine on ‘’39’, lead vocals on ‘I’m In Love With My Car’)

Repertoire:
‘We Will Rock You’
(fast)
, ‘Let Me Entertain You’, ‘Somebody To Love’, ‘If You Can’t Beat Them’, ‘Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to......’ / ‘Killer Queen’ / ‘Bicycle Race’ / ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ / ‘Get Down, Make Love’ / ‘You’re My Best Friend’, ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)’, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, ‘Spread Your Wings’, ‘Dreamers Ball’, ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘’39’, ‘It’s Late’, ‘Brighton Rock’, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, ‘Sheer Heart Attack’, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘God Save The Queen’, ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’, ‘Mustapha’
(intro)
, ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘Big Spender’

Itinerary:

April 13/14: Budokan Hall, Tokyo

April 19/20: Festival Hall, Osaka

April 21: Practica Ethics Commemoration Hall, Kanazawa

April 23-25: Budokan Hall, Tokyo

April 27: Central International Display, Kobe

April 28: International Display, Nagoya

April 30/May 1: Kyuden Athletic Association, Fukuoka

May 2: Prefectural Athletic Association, Yamaguchi

May 5/6: Makomani Ice Arena, Sapporo

While
Live Killers
was being assembled between tours in Montreux for a June release, the band went off to Japan after a six-week break, their first visit since 1976. This time, they were able to perform Brian’s tribute to the country, ‘Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)’, which featured the guitarist appearing on piano for the first, but certainly not the last, time.

Freddie’s voice was starting to falter during these shows, and was a lesson in preservation for the singer on what was undoubtedly one of Queen’s longest tours. He would go to better lengths in the future to ensure optimal rest was taken on his already strained cords. Unfortunately, this meant that ‘Spread Your Wings’, ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ and ‘If You Can’t Beat Them’ were compromised, though they would return later in the year.

SAARBRÜKEN FESTIVAL

18 AUGUST 1979

Musicians:
John Deacon
(bass guitar)
, Brian May
(guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar on ‘Love Of My Life’)
, Freddie Mercury
(vocals, piano, maracas, tambourine)
, Roger Taylor
(drums, vocals, lead vocals on ‘I’m In Love With My Car’)

Repertoire:
‘We Will Rock You’
(fast)
, ‘Let Me Entertain
You’, ‘If You Can’t Beat Them’, ‘Mustapha’ / ‘Death On Two Legs’ / ‘Killer Queen’ / ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ / ‘Get Down, Make Love’ / ‘You’re My Best Friend’, ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Somebody To Love’, ‘Spread Your Wings’, ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, Drum Solo / Guitar Solo, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, ‘Sheer Heart Attack’, ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘God Save The Queen’

Queen weren’t known for playing festivals, preferring to stick to extensive tours where the musical performance and quality were at a peak instead of one-offs that were inevitably unpredictable, at best. Surprisingly, they accepted an invitation to be headliners at the August 1979 Saarbrüken Festival over such artists as Rory Gallagher, Red Baron, Molly Hatchet, Albert Lee and Ten Years After, Lake, Voyager and The Commodores, and with 30,000 people in attendance, they realized that such a show would be good for their profile in Germany.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of their best gigs: the set was riddled with technical difficulties that finally caused Roger to destroy his drum set at the conclusion of the show. As if that wasn’t enough, he had also attempted to bleach his hair earlier in the day, but had applied too much and seen his hair turn bright green.

CRAZY TOUR

22 NOVEMBER TO 22 DECEMBER 1979

Musicians:
John Deacon
(bass guitar, fretless bass on ‘’39’)
, Brian May
(guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar on ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘’39’, and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, piano on ‘Save Me’)
, Freddie Mercury
(vocals, piano, acoustic guitar on ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’)
, Roger Taylor
(drums, vocals, lead vocals on ‘I’m In Love With My Car’, bass drum and tambourine on ‘’39’)

Repertoire:
‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘We Will Rock You’
(fast)
, ‘Let Me Entertain You’, ‘If You Can’t Beat Them’, ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’, ‘Somebody To Love’, ‘Mustapha’ / ‘Death On Two Legs’ / ‘Killer Queen’ / ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ / ‘Get Down, Make Love’ / ‘You’re My Best Friend’, ‘Save Me’, ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, ‘Spread Your Wings’, ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘’39’, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, Drum Solo/Guitar Solo, ‘Brighton Rock Reprise’, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, ‘Sheer Heart Attack’, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘God Save The Queen’

Itinerary:

November 22: Royal Dublin Society Hall, Dublin, Eire

November 24: National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham

November 26/27: Apollo Theatre, Manchester

November 30/December 1: Apollo Theatre, Glasgow

December 3/4: City Hall, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

December 6/7: Empire Theatre, Liverpool

December 9: Hippodrome, Bristol

December 10/11: Brighton Centre, Brighton

December 13: Lyceum Ballroom, London

December 14: Rainbow Theatre, London

December 17: Tiffany’s, Purley, London

December 19: Tottenham Mayfair, London

December 20: Lewisham Odeon, London

December 22: Alexandra Palace, London

The last time Queen had toured England was in May 1978, with a meagre five-date run that hardly left their fans satisfied. In an effort to reconnect with their estranged fellow countrymen, Gerry Stickells was dispatched to find suitable venues in which the band could perform, with only one caveat: there was to be none of the expansive stadia the band had filled over the past three years, but more intimate settings that a band of their stature would normally avoid.

“We had played the big places,” Brian explained, “and although we loved them and felt it was good that more and more people could come and see us, we also felt we were losing touch with the audience. Our whole show was about audience contact: we felt close to them, they felt close to us. But with those big places they were so far away, so distant. So we got Gerry Stickells to find some small, silly venues for us. We didn’t want just ordinary little theatres; we wanted places that were different. We played the medium-sized places first, then the daft ones. We called it the
Crazy
Tour and thoroughly enjoyed it!”

The
Crazy
Tour, a clever double entendre indicating not only the eccentricity of going back to smaller venues but also the recent success of the ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ single, started on 22 November 1979 with Queen’s first concert in Ireland – though it was supposed to start two days earlier in Cork, this was canceled for reasons unknown. The songs performed hadn’t changed much, though the order was frequently switched, as there were often multiple shows in one city and the band wanted to offer a different show for fans who might have been travelling
a bit. The fast version of ‘We Will Rock You’ was moved to second place in the set, and was replaced by ‘Let Me Entertain You’ for a handful of shows. ‘Jailhouse Rock’ was also introduced as a set opener for a few shows, and ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ was occasionally moved from late in the set to the second song performed. Two new songs, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and the newly recorded yet still unreleased ‘Save Me’, were also introduced. The former featured Freddie strumming away on an acoustic guitar for the first time, while the latter featured Brian on piano, the first time that British fans would see Brian playing the instrument.

The opening night in Dublin was one of the rare occasions when ‘God Save The Queen’ was not performed over the PA system; instead, the show ended with ‘We Are The Champions’, though a specially rehearsed rendition of ‘Danny Boy’ was performed before ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ during the first encore. The tour also saw the reappearance of The Royal Family, a loyal clan of fans who had travelled around Europe all year to see Queen play live, and they showed their loyalty by starting a conga line during ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ in Birmingham. Later in Glasgow, they left a note backstage that asked for ‘Liar’ to be performed, or else the band wouldn’t make it out of the city alive. In keeping with the spontaneous nature of the tour – and perhaps fearing for their lives a little – the
Queen
album track was brought out of mothballs.

Also in Glasgow, an embarrassing moment came when Roger, despite having sung ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ nightly since November 1977, had a mental block and completely forgot the words to his own song. What followed was a semi-instrumental version that featured the drummer repeatedly singing the only line he could remember before Freddie jumped in to save the performance with some equally dodgy lyrics. In Liverpool, Brian and Freddie performed a brief, off-the-cuff rendition of Wings’ ‘Mull Of Kintyre’, with Freddie quipping that he’ll be Linda McCartney. Wings, also on their own tour of the UK, had just performed in Liverpool the week before.

On 19 December, the band played in one of the smallest venues of the tour – a venue in Tottenham so small that they were unable to fit their already stripped-back lighting rig onto the stage and had to play with the venue’s lights instead; interestingly, the same problem had been encountered at the Lyceum on the 13th, forcing the crew to drill two holes in the ceiling. More startlingly, Gerry Stickells, who had been on tour with Queen as their manager for three years, had collapsed backstage due to exhaustion earlier in the tour and was rushed to a local hospital. “The doctors told me to take it easy for a while,” he explained, “but none of them have ever been on the road with Queen. That advice is almost impossible to take. The tour might have been small in venue size, but it was a hassle. Some of the places were so tiny that trying to cram in a band the size of Queen was nigh on impossible. But that’s what they pay me for, working miracles.”

The critics approached the band’s return to smaller venues with surprisingly open minds. Following Queen’s first-ever show in Ireland, the
Dublin Evening Press
offered more of a career retrospective than an actual review, though the writer was clearly impressed: “Queen in concert is a theatrical experience, a complete show. There’s the excellence of the band’s music, a heritage which goes back over eight enormously successful albums, several box office breaking world tours and smash singles ... The blurbs will tell you that their show is two hours of Queen in direct contact with their audience, and that’s exactly how it is.”
Birmingham Evening Mail
was complimentary: “The range and versatility that have elevated Queen to supergroup status was all there. But the outfit were forced to pump out such volume to fill the [NEC Hall] that the distortion of the sound ruined the effect ... I didn’t think the intricate recordings that Queen delight in would be possible to recreate live. And they weren’t quite, but they came so close you couldn’t complain.”
Sounds
, meanwhile, had to be won over: “Ever considered Queen’s songs seriously? Ever really listened to them? I haven’t. I’ve been far too busy listening to that old chunkachunka dub to really take any notice of this bunch of shrink-wrapped unit shifters. But consider for me the moment the total absurdity of a song called ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’. A messy, meandering, annoying tune that shows absolutely no direction at all. Useless mocking lyrics that refuse to vacate your mind. You end up wondering just what kind of genius makes you sing along to such rubbish ... The fans sang along, ecstatic and carefree, and once more I wonder why. Why were they singing such empty lyrics? What could these words possibly mean to them, and yet, every line had been memorized and was chanted with almost religious fervor. Perhaps it’s the Queen method of filling in the empty lifestyles of their supporters. Pure fantasy. A musical James Bond movie. Queen are exceptionally important and must be admired, despite the fact that they will never be
considered hip again. I left the Apollo in a state of absolute amazement. The realization that I’d actually enjoyed every second of a credibility-blowing Queen gig was beginning to burn away at my confused mind. There is no hope for me now.”

The tour wound up at Alexandra Palace on 22 December with the filming of the promotional video for ‘Save Me’. At the same show, Freddie walked on stage during the second encore of ‘We Will Rock You’ in his silver lurex suit with a bunch of bananas, throwing them into the audience for reasons known only to him. Perhaps the bananas were a metaphor for Queen’s craziest idea for a tour yet – while Alexandra Palace held 3,000 people, some of the smallest venues on the tour were clubs with a capacity of a few hundred. From this point forward, Queen would never be able to pull off a stunt like this again.