City: | San Diego, CA, USA |
Venue: | San Diego Sports Arena |
Date: | December 16, 1977 |
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Here is a gloriously positive review of the show in the Dec 20th LA Times (1, 2). It states that six new songs were performed, giving further credence to the suggestion that It's Late, Spread Your Wings, and My Melancholy Blues were songs that rotated in the setlist on this tour (We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, Sheer Heart Attack, and Get Down Make Love were already regulars). The seven News Of The World tracks would all be mainstays in the set by 1978. The second photo set was taken by Colleen Bracken. Here are a more pro pics, with the wrong date given on the website (they claim to be from Los Angeles '78, but they're not even from Los Angeles '77, as the first picture was used alongside the review of the San Diego show, published two days before the LA show): 1 2 The review, Robert Hilburn, was as follows: SAN DIEGO – The rock concert scene may have started sluggishly in ’77, but it’s ending with a stir. There was Aerosmith’s snarl last month, Rod Stewart’s rejoice last week and now: Queen. Already hailed as the best of the mid-’70s British arrivals, Queen is back with its most spectacularly staged and finely honed show yet. Coupled with its stylish new “News of the World” album, the tour should push the classy foursome even further into forefront of contemporary rock bands… Freddie Mercury, the band’s flashy lead singer and occasional pianist, sang and moved with more confidence and dynamics than ever. Wearing a black and white Harlequin outfit open to the waist, Mercury pranced around the stage in a way that gave the band’s already dramatic numbers even added lure and punch. When he sings potent, upbeat tunes like “Liar,” there are few in rock who can match Mercury’s vocal bit. But he’s equally satisfying on softer, more tender numbers. A drunken John Deacon punched through a glass window after the show. Although it required 19 stitches, he was still able to perform the final four shows of the tour. A picture from a party a few nights later reveals him in an arm sling. |