City: Providence, RI, USA
Venue: Providence Civic Center
Date: November 14, 1978

Setlist:
We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Somebody To Love, If You Can't Beat Them, Death On Two Legs, Killer Queen, Bicycle Race, I'm In Love With My Car, Get Down Make Love, You're My Best Friend, Now I'm Here, Spread Your Wings, Dreamer's Ball, Love Of My Life, '39, It's Late, Brighton Rock, Fat Bottomed Girls, Keep Yourself Alive, The March Of The Black Queen (intro), Bohemian Rhapsody, Tie Your Mother Down, Sheer Heart Attack, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen



 

                     

Queen's seventh album, the eclectic 'Jazz', is released on this day in the US (four days earlier in the UK). Therefore, until this show, Queen had performed three songs (Let Me Entertain You, If You Can't Beat Them, and Dreamer's Ball) each night that their audiences didn't know (the Fat Bottomed Girls / Bicycle Race 7" single had been released in October). There is something to be said for any band with the audacity to test new material on an arena-sized audience before releasing it.

After the medley Freddie points out that some of the lights on the giant lighting rig have gone out. "If you guys are wondering why the lights have kind of changed for the last three numbers, it's because the lighting board's fucked. Kaputt. Who needs the lights? We've got the four musicians. That's all we want." It was something Freddie sometimes griped about, so it was seen as no big deal by the crew. At another point (likely following the acoustic set), Freddie took his mic off the mic stand and dropped it in the audience for a few people in the front rows to shout into.

Although Mercury isn't at his strongest, It's Late and Brighton Rock are still great versions. Spread Your Wings is very loose and playful, and the acoustic set is excellent. Mercury also delivers a very strong Keep Yourself Alive, despite being a song they have played it at every gig since 1971. The band are still hungry in 1978, far from phoning it in.

Likely as a response to an audience member shouting for The March Of The Black Queen, Freddie plays the intro of the Queen II epic before Bohemian Rhapsody, the only known instance of him doing so. It's almost like a last gasp to cling to their beginnings, as few people in the audience seem to recognize the song. As Mercury said as few days later in New York, "We've grown up now." It is the last time any track from Queen II would be heard on stage for many years. With the exception of resurrecting a portion of Seven Seas Of Rhye for the Works tour in 1984, their sophomore effort would be all but forgotten by the band for the remainder of their concert career.

Sheer Heart Attack is now a longer version, as it had merged into Keep Yourself Alive earlier in the tour. It would be performed like this through 1984.

The pictures were taken by Nino Trovato, cousin of Joe Trovato, Queen's head of lighting at the time. He helped build the "pizza oven" rig on this tour, as well as the crown lighting rig from the News Of The World tour. The first two pics were taken during We Will Rock You (fast), the next three are from Let Me Entertain You, and the following three are from Somebody To Love.


Recording length: 110 minutes (2 CD, complete)
Quality: A
Source: Audience
Lineage: AUD > Master Cassette > CDR > ? > WAV (GoldWave speed correction, EQ, fixes) > FLAC level 8
Track listing:
We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Somebody To Love, If You Can't Beat Them, Death On Two Legs, Killer Queen, Bicycle Race, I'm In Love With My Car, Get Down Make Love, You're My Best Friend, Now I'm Here, Spread Your Wings, Dreamer's Ball, Love Of My Life, '39, It's Late, Brighton Rock, Fat Bottomed Girls, Keep Yourself Alive, The March Of The Black Queen (intro), Bohemian Rhapsody, Tie Your Mother Down, Sheer Heart Attack, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen


This fantastic stereo audience recording emerged in 2017, taped by the fellow who runs this excellent website.




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