City: | Inglewood, CA, USA |
Venue: | The Forum |
Date: | March 2, 1977 |
Presumed setlist: | A Day At The Races overture, Tie Your Mother Down, Ogre Battle, White Queen, Somebody To Love, Killer Queen, The Millionaire Waltz, You're My Best Friend, Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Sweet Lady, Brighton Rock, '39, You Take My Breath Away, White Man, The Prophet's Song, Bohemian Rhapsody, Stone Cold Crazy, Keep Yourself Alive, Liar, In The Lap Of The Gods...Revisited, Now I'm Here, Big Spender, Jailhouse Rock, See What A Fool I've Been, God Save The Queen |
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Brian May vowed to play the LA Forum after seeing Led Zeppelin play there in 1975 (the epic third night, March 27), and his dream came true two years later. Mercury, after Ogre Battle: "Thank you and good evening everybody! What a load of tarts that we have here tonight. Thank you very much for this lovely welcome tonight. It's really nice to be back here in Los Angeles. It really is. And thank you for bringing us to this place. It looks kind of nice." After Somebody To Love, Brian says, "Thank you for making that a hit over on this beautiful coast. We appreciate that." Freddie, before Sweet Lady: "Okay, I've got my glass of champagne. Have you got yours? I know I do this every time we're here but I think it's fun. Queen would like to drink a special toast to everybody here tonight. Cheers, Los Angeles! Thank you very much. May you all have champagne for breakfast tomorrow." He then pours some on the audience and says, "Pass it around." Brian, before '39: "We don't usually do this acoustic stuff as you may have noticed, but we'll have a go this time. This is a song off the last album. It features Mr. Taylor coming up front; a rare appearance. He's over there somewhere. And the dancing toes of Mr. Mercury [Freddie laughs]. It's called '39." Freddie, after delivering a beautiful version of You Take My Breath Away: "And don't I think next time we come back, when we do come back we're gonna bring back an orchestra. What do you think?" The audience erupts. "We might just do that. Might prove interesting." He then refers to the crowd as "a sophisticated rock audience" (a line which he used at many shows on this tour, but not all), much to their delight, before the band offer a killer version of White Man. Here is a review of the show: (1, 2, 3). This second review says Seven Seas Of Rhye was played, which is almost certainly not true. A third review confirms See What A Fool I've Been was the final encore. The second photo was taken by Neil Zlozower. The third photo could be from either night. These photos by Jeffrey Mayer are purportedly from one of the Forum shows. This set taken by Neil Zlozower is from this show. |
Recording length: | 58 minutes (1 CD, incomplete) | |
Quality: | B+ | |
Source: | Audience | |
Lineage: | AUD > Cassette (x) > WAV (GoldWave speed correction) > FLAC level 8 | |
Track listing: | Ogre Battle, White Queen, Somebody To Love, Killer Queen, The Millionaire Waltz, You're My Best Friend, Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Sweet Lady, Brighton Rock [cut], '39, You Take My Breath Away, White Man, The Prophet's Song |
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About half of the concert is captured on this audience recording on which the band sound very powerful. For decades it was mislabelled as being from March 3. This is a lower generation copy than the one that circulated for eons, although Side B (from Brighton Rock onward) was not transferred quite as well as side A. The audience members close to the taper totally dig Freddie's vocal gymnastics and effects in The Prophet's Song. |
Recording length: | CDR |
Quality: | B- |
Source: | Audience |
Lineage: | "European News Of The World Tour" (Breakdown) |
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Track listing: | White Queen, Somebody To Love, Killer Queen, The Millionaire Waltz, You're My Best Friend, Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Sweet Lady, Brighton Rock [cut], '39, You Take My Breath Away, White Man, The Prophet's Song |
Most of the LA audience tape was tagged onto Breakdown's (poorly named) bootleg of the Gothenburg show. The sound has been sabotaged by digital processing. |
Recording length: | 13 minutes (1 DVD, incomplete) |
Quality: | A- |
Source: | Audience |
Lineage: | 8mm silent master reel > DVD-R (x) > PC > speed correction > DVD-R (0) |
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Track listing: | Tie Your Mother Down [cut], Ogre Battle [cut], Somebody To Love [cut], Killer Queen [cut], You're My Best Friend [cut], Bring Back That Leroy Brown [cut], Brighton Rock [cut], White Man [cut], The Prophet's Song [cut], Bohemian Rhapsody [cut], Stone Cold Crazy [cut], In The Lap Of The Gods...Revisited [cut], Now I'm Here [cut] |
This silent 8mm video circulated for decades on VHS in poor quality, but once upon a time cleaner copies of the reel were sold to buyers from an ad in Goldmine magazine, although none have circulated. As seen in the screenshots, the master copy has lost most of its colour over the years (or it could be from a poor transfer to digital). Now that audio from both nights in LA exists, it is certain that the footage is from the first night (this excellent comparison video clarifies any doubts). 8mm film was divided into two parts: half for audio, and half for video - but not all 8mm cameras were able to record audio. And so, the filmer decided to dub audio onto the video (from the studio LPs, as well as one of the Seattle bootleg LPs) which doesn't match the video, since it was a quick job with an intention to have an alternative to silence. After carefully examining the video, the actual songs that were filmed are listed above. Like most 8mm videos from the '70s, the footage is very fragmentary. The video is 12 minutes long (13 with speed correction), with clips of over half of the songs performed at the show (including long segments of Ogre Battle and White Man). Some VHS copies were 22 minutes long, but they repeated 10 of the previous minutes in a bit worse quality. |