City:	Santa Monica, CA, USA
Venue:	Santa Monica Civic Auditorium
Date:	March 29, 1975 - late show

Presumed setlist:

Procession, Now I'm Here, Ogre Battle, Father To Son, White Queen, Flick Of The Wrist, In The Lap Of The Gods, Killer Queen, The March Of The Black Queen, Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Son And Daughter, Keep Yourself Alive, Stone Cold Crazy, Liar, In The Lap Of The Gods...Revisited, Big Spender, Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll, Jailhouse Rock, God Save The Queen

This is the later show, at 11:30pm.

There is a hilarious moment a few songs into the show, as John Deacon's has had an accident. Freddie laughs and makes no hesitation pointing it out to a few thousand people: "Bass guitarist John Deacon, oh he's there. He's split his trousers! Have a look! A little nice bit of fun." Brian adds, "There's a rarity."

Freddie continues, "Okay, right now while we do this strip act, we'd like to do a medley for you. About four pieces, three pieces from our album called Sheer Heart Attack. Also we'll do a snatch of Killer Queen. So here it goes, 1, 2, 3, 4!" And they launch into In The Lap Of The Gods.

It is rumoured that Freddie performed a bit of The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke from Queen II at one of these west coast shows. An eyewitness says someone in the audience kept yelling for the song, and to appease him Freddie played a snippet of it on the piano.

Here is glowing review written by someone who saw both shows. A Melody Maker article about these shows indicates that tour dates in Australia were on the table at this point. They ultimately wouldn't materialize until 1976.

The latter article also states Tenement Funster was performed, but this is extremely unlikely.

While in LA, the band informally played at the Rainbow Bar and Grill on the Sunset Strip, which was a popular hangout spot for celebrities in the 70s and 80s.

Recording length:	46 minutes (1 LP, incomplete)
Quality:	B+
Source:	Audience
Lineage:	"The Royal American Tour 1975" LP

Track listing:	Flick Of The Wrist, In The Lap Of The Gods, Killer Queen, The March Of The Black Queen, Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Son And Daughter [cut], Keep Yourself Alive, Stone Cold Crazy, Liar, Big Spender, Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll, Jailhouse Rock [cut]
This LP was one of the first Queen bootlegs released back in the mid-70s. This recording is apparently of the evening show. The sound is stereo and well-balanced. The matrix number on these early pressings is WRMB-307, seen on the cover and the blue label of the vinyl. A 1976 Circus magazine article mentions this bootleg, and Brian May adds: "I hate those things - they rarely give an accurate picture of the group." While that may be true, in 1976 this was one of the very few live recordings of the band available. The subculture of bootleg recordings was not going away any time soon.

Recording length:	46 minutes (1 LP, incomplete)
Quality:	B+
Source:	Audience
Lineage:	"The Royal American Tour" LP

Track listing:	Flick Of The Wrist, In The Lap Of The Gods, Killer Queen, The March Of The Black Queen, Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Son And Daughter [cut], Keep Yourself Alive, Stone Cold Crazy, Liar, Big Spender, Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll, Jailhouse Rock [cut]
This was the first re-release of the audience recording. This one had the sound degraded to mono. The matrix number is TAKRL-1377.

Recording length:	46 minutes (1 LP, incomplete)
Quality:	B+
Source:	Audience
Lineage:	"The Royal American Tour" LP

Track listing:	Flick Of The Wrist, In The Lap Of The Gods, Killer Queen, The March Of The Black Queen, Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Son And Daughter [cut], Keep Yourself Alive, Stone Cold Crazy, Liar, Big Spender, Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll, Jailhouse Rock [cut]
The bootleg was re-released once more in Germany in 1992. The only difference other than the colour of the insert is the matrix number on the vinyl itself - ME-0095 (the matrix number on the cover is TAKRL-1377, like the previous release). Thanks to Andreas Voigts for all of these bootleg scans and information.

Recording length:	46 minutes (1 CD, incomplete)
Quality:	B+
Source:	Audience
Lineage:	"The Royal American Tour 1975" (Doctor) silver

Track listing:	Flick Of The Wrist, In The Lap Of The Gods, Killer Queen, The March Of The Black Queen, Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Son And Daughter [cut], Keep Yourself Alive, Stone Cold Crazy, Liar, Big Spender, Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll, Jailhouse Rock [cut]
This 1996 Japanese bootleg CD had some slight hiss reduction done, and as a result it doesn't sound quite as rich as the LPs. There is a cut and repeat during Jailhouse Rock. The record needle skipped a couple times during the transfer, and they didn't fix it for the final product. I corrected the date on the third piece of artwork, as this mislabelling has led to much confusion over the years.

Recording length:	9 minutes (1 CD, incomplete)
Quality:	B
Source:	Audience
Lineage:	"The Mercury Is Rising" (ARC) silver
Track listing:	Flick Of The Wrist, Killer Queen, The March Of The Black Queen, Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Stone Cold Crazy

Some of the Santa Monica LP was used for this 1993 Germany compilation bootleg. The disc also contains common material from London '74 and Seattle '77.

Recording length:	17 minutes (1 CD, incomplete)
Quality:	B
Source:	Audience
Lineage:	"Year Of The Opera" (All About Fame) silver

Track listing:	In The Lap Of The Gods, Killer Queen, The March Of The Black Queen, Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Stone Cold Crazy, Liar
The first few tracks on this 1993 German compilation bootleg are from the the Santa Monica show, but the remainder of the disc is from two shows in Tokyo '76.

Recording length:	11 minutes (1 CD, incomplete)
Quality:	B+
Source:	Audience
Lineage:	"By Request: The Ultimate Collection Volume Two" silvers

Track listing:	Flick Of The Wrist, In The Lap Of The Gods, Killer Queen, The March Of The Black Queen
Released in 1995, this is one of those compilation bootlegs that consisted almost entirely of either officially released material or songs taken from older bootlegs. A few songs are from one of the older bootlegs of the Santa Monica show, labeled only as "Live USA 1975".

Previous Concert

Next Concert

Back to 1975 Concerts