| City: | Rotterdam, Netherlands |
| Venue: | Ahoy Rotterdam |
| Date: | January 29, 1979 |
| 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, Don't Stop Me Now, Spread Your Wings, Dreamer's Ball, Love Of My Life, '39, It's Late, Brighton Rock, Keep Yourself Alive, Bohemian Rhapsody, Tie Your Mother Down, Sheer Heart Attack, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen |
 
 
 
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This second night had to be added due to ticket sales, as only the January 30th show was originally in the itinerary. If You Can't Beat Them returns to the set at the expense of Fat Bottomed Girls. From this point onward, it seems the band were keen on performing one or the other on alternate nights, with the occasional exception. Freddie, before Love Of My Life: "This next song requires a total dedication from you guys, and that means you gotta sing like fuck - like crazy. This is a duet between Brian and myself, a song called Love Of My Life." After the song, Brian says a few words to the enthusiastic Dutch audience: "If you feel like stamping and clapping and things, we'd like that now. Freddie interjects, "What a lovely bunch of coconuts." Brian then introduces '39. Freddie would often sing a few lines from Fun It during the intro of Keep Yourself Alive on the Jazz tour, but tonight he does it after the first chorus. Brian picks an inopportune moment during Bohemian Rhapsody to break a guitar string - just a few notes shy of his exit before the final "nothing really matters." Bits of soundcheck footage were broadcast on TV in 1979. Some brief segments of the fast We Will Rock You, Let Me Entertain You, and You're My Best Friend (dubbed with the studio version of Don't Stop Me Now) were seen as well. 
A portion of the soundcheck footage (and some additional segments) were rebroadcast in 2004 as part of the Japanese "Jewels" Queen documentary, along with bits of Bicycle Race and I'm In Love With My Car. Filmed from below the stage, the quality isn't the greatest, at least by TV broadcast standards (Roger and his drum kit are mostly a white glare during the second track). A few brief bits of Tie Your Mother Down, Sheer Heart Attack, and We Are The Champions are woven into the footage.
On February 2, 1979, a Dutch radio station aired a special about the shows, and they included two brief clips from this show from an excellent recording (Freddie's initial greetings after the first song, and some cheering before the encore; no actual music was aired). Here's a review of the show (in Dutch), submitted by Raf Foubert. Also submitted by him was a copy of the venue plans, with scribblings of the projected ticket costs in each section of the Ahoy. The first two rows of photos were taken by R van Berkel and Martin de Jong respectively. The last set was taken by Tim de Scally (the third of which was taken during the second half of Bohemian Rhapsody). |
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| Recording length: | 112 minutes (2 CD, complete) |
| Quality: | B- |
| Source: | Audience |
| Lineage: | AUD > ? > Cassette (x) > CDR (x) > WAV (GoldWave speed correction) > 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, Don't Stop Me Now, Spread Your Wings, Dreamer's Ball, Love Of My Life, '39, It's Late, Brighton Rock, Keep Yourself Alive, Bohemian Rhapsody, Tie Your Mother Down, Sheer Heart Attack, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen |
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Although there is virtually no tape hiss, the sound isn't too clear on this audience recording. There are a few (likely intentional) sudden volume spikes on disc one starting part way through Spread Your Wings, leading to some clipping. |
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| Recording length: | 24 minutes (1 DVD, incomplete) |
| Video quality: | B |
| Source: | Audience |
| Lineage: | 8mm silent video > ? > DVD-R (x) |
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| Track listing: | We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Somebody To Love, It's Late, Dreamer's Ball, Keep Yourself Alive, Bohemian Rhapsody, Tie Your Mother Down, Now I'm Here, If You Can't Beat Them, Death On Two Legs, Killer Queen, Bicycle Race, You're My Best Friend, Spread Your Wings, Don't Stop Me Now, Brighton Rock |
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This silent 8mm film has the above audio recording dubbed on top of it (but not properly synced, at it simply runs from the beginning of the show through Killer Queen). The songs are very much out of order, likely because the various reels were pasted together indiscriminately. The length of this footage is impressive, as filmers were usually only able to smuggle in a few reels of film. Freddie is seen without sunglasses during the fast We Will Rock You, but he has them on in the pro footage of this song, leading to the possibility that the first song or two may actually be from the second night. This film contains the only known footage of Freddie's snippet of Fun It during Keep Yourself Alive. This particular copy is unavailable to most. The best circulating copies are a few generations worse than the screenshots seen above. |
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