City: | Buenos Aires, Argentina |
Venue: | Estadio José Amalfitani |
Date: | March 1, 1981 |
Setlist: | We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Play The Game, Somebody To Love, I'm In Love With My Car, Get Down Make Love, Need Your Loving Tonight, Save Me, Now I'm Here, Dragon Attack, Now I'm Here (reprise), Fat Bottomed Girls, Love Of My Life, Keep Yourself Alive, drum/guitar solos, Flash, The Hero, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Bohemian Rhapsody, Tie Your Mother Down, Another One Bites The Dust, Sheer Heart Attack, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen |
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After recovering from the excitement of last night's show, the band offer a more solid performance tonight. Somebody To Love has returned to the setlist, much to the delight of Freddie. It was his favourite Queen song, and knowing him and his unique sense of humility, it was probably his favourite song by anyone. He always wore it on his sleeve, and even once said (in a 1977 interview) that he preferred it to Bohemian Rhapsody from a songwriting standpoint. It would be heard at most of the remaining shows this year. Fat Bottomed Girls is also revived after being absent from the last five shows. It would heard a few more times in 1981, but would be a mainstay in the setlist in 1982. Freddie introduces I'm In Love With My Car which is pretty unusual, as the medley has been dropped for the first time since they started doing them. Mustapha, Death On Two Legs, and Killer Queen aren't played tonight (Killer Queen had been in the setlist since its release). Of these three, only Killer Queen would remain by the end of the year, and the entire medley idea would be dropped in 1982. Classic Mercury before Save Me: "This next song is another one from the album The Game. This one features Brian May on the piano. Pianola, or whatever you call it." He and Brian both snicker. Freddie's microphone dies in the second verse of the song. Within seconds, Ratty comes to the rescue and brings him a new microphone, but Freddie is quickly dissatisfied with it, as it seems to be too loud or perhaps even distorted in the monitors. As seen in pic 10, he seamlessly switches over to John Deacon's mic (which needs to be turned up, since John doesn't actually sing, even although he often appears to) where he sings the rest of the verse and second chorus before jumping over to the piano for the bridge. Throughout all this, he doesn't miss a beat. A true professional. One of the incredible intricacies in Queen's show is seen on the video. In Dragon Attack, when Freddie sings "Take me to the place where the red's all red," the lights go red. Likewise, during "Take me to the place where the green's all green," the lights turn green. As he had done since the early days, Freddie tosses his tambourine into the audience before he starts singing the first verse of Keep Yourself Alive. During the second verse, he notices that it has been thrown back on stage, so he throws it back again! At the end of the gig, armed police escort the band out of the stadium. The complete concert was filmed and later broadcast on TV (Canal 9). The original broadcast was seen by about 35 million people, and included clips of the gear being loaded in and the stage being assembled, as well as commentary between songs by Juan Alberto Badía. A copy of this video has since been shown at fan conventions, and clips have been seen in many documentaries. An hour-long version of the video from the TV station's master copy is circulating amongst collectors. Get Down Make Love was omitted from later broadcasts in 1982 and 1991, likely due to government censorship. It was deleted from the master tapes, but a safety copy was eventually located by Canal 9 in the early 2000s. They aired a special on the Argentina 1981 shows on November 10, 2002, which included much of the first half of this show, and the complete concert was eventually aired by the network in 2009. A few of the pictures were submitted by Fabio Minero. Here are a couple pro pics from this show: 1 2 And here is a great article from the March 7 Record Mirror summing up these two triumphant shows in Buenos Aires. It mentions how We Are The Champions was especially cherished by the fans, since Argentina won the last World Cup of football in 1978. |
Recording length: | 88 minutes (2 CD, incomplete) |
Quality: | A |
Source: | TV |
Lineage: | TV > ? > CDR (x) > WAV > FLAC level 8 |
Track listing: | We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Play The Game, Somebody To Love, I'm In Love With My Car, Need Your Loving Tonight, Save Me, Now I'm Here, Dragon Attack, Now I'm Here (reprise), Fat Bottomed Girls, Love Of My Life, Keep Yourself Alive, drum/guitar solos, Flash, The Hero, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Bohemian Rhapsody, Tie Your Mother Down, Another One Bites The Dust, Sheer Heart Attack, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen |
This is a great recording from the 1991 TV rebroadcast, better than any of the circulating videos. The sound quality drops for the last three tracks, however, implying they could have been merged in from a copy of the 1981 broadcast. Get Down Make Love is edited out, as are the commentator's speeches between songs. |