City: | Saarbrücken, Germany |
Venue: | Ludwigsparkstadion |
Date: | August 18, 1979 |
Setlist: | We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, If You Can't Beat Them, Mustapha, Death On Two Legs, Killer Queen, I'm In Love With My Car, Get Down Make Love, You're My Best Friend, Now I'm Here, Somebody To Love, Spread Your Wings, Love Of My Life, Keep Yourself Alive, guitar/drum solos, Brighton Rock (ending), Bohemian Rhapsody, Tie Your Mother Down, Sheer Heart Attack, Jailhouse Rock, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
|
The band's first live album was released on June 26, consisting of songs recorded on the previous European tour (and some overdubs done in the studio during the break after the Japanese dates). Many of the songs were released as A and B sides of singles. Love Of My Life was the most successful of them, becoming a #1 hit in Argentina and Brazil. See this link for more details. Queen headlined this 1979 festival in Germany, with Red Baron, Voyager, Lake, Molly Hatchet, The Commodores, Ten Years Later (Alvin Lee's late-70s trio), Rory Gallagher also on the day's bill. The Commodores weren't able to finish their set, as they were booed off the stage, along with having to dodge bottles being thrown at them for being a funk and r&b band playing at a rock festival. Plenty of these rock fans came to see Rory Gallagher and Alvin Lee, and weren't Queen fans - but many were won over by Queen's live set, as they came to see how they were a rock-driven band on stage compared to the pop-oriented sound of the singles most people knew. Before the show, Roger attempted to dye his hair blonde but it ended up green instead (as seen in the pre-show pics, one of which is with Rory Gallagher - around this moment Queen asked Rory to join them for a rock 'n' roll medley but he declined). Roger later said the hair debaucle was one of the most embarrassing experiences of his life. He had some monitor issues throughout the show, so by the end his frustration had accumulated and he trashed his drum kit. Queen archivist Greg Brooks alleges in his book that Freddie made fun of Roger's hair throughout the show, but no such thing is heard on the audience recording. Being a festival gig, Queen have cut down the length of their set. Interestingly enough, they have dropped their three hit songs from the recent Jazz album, yet they perform three others consecutively near the top of the show, one of which is Mustapha, which is heard for the first time. The Parsi/Arabic number is slotted at the beginning of the medley (Brian May notably hasn't quite worked out his guitar parts). This version is only a minute and a half long; they would add another chorus by the next tour, and the arrangement would stick through 1981. Every night the song begins with John Deacon giving Mercury a tuning note for the a cappella intro, doing a 12th fret harmonic on the G string and quickly swirling the volume up and down. Freddie's voice is well-rested after the Jazz tour and recording sessions for 4 songs that would end up on their next album, The Game. He sounds fantastic and daring at this show, knowing full well it's a single show and that he doesn't need to preserve his voice. He sounds like a new man, having learned plenty about his voice and the nature of pacing himself throughout the long and tiring tour that ended in May. He introduces If You Can't Beat Them as "a song that we haven't got on the album Live Killers." There wasn't too much audience reaction to You're My Best Friend (the song didn't chart in Germany, so the average radio-listening audience member didn't know it), prompting Freddie to say before Now I'm Here, "Alright, we'll do a rock one now. Enough of this serious stuff. We're gonna do something that requires a bit of singing!" During the Now I'm Here jam, Brian plays the iconic riff from The Kinks' "You Really Got Me" a few times. Freddie forgets a few words in the second verse of Spread Your Wings. The drum solo in Keep Yourself Alive leads directly into Brian's guitar solo. Roger's tympani solo is inserted about a minute into it. The band encore with Jailhouse Rock as they did at their last show in Japan. Later in the year it will become the opening song of their set. For some reason the tape of God Save The Queen starts playing about a minute after they finish We Are The Champions. Also, this is probably the only time when Freddie doesn't say anything to the audience at the end of a show. This is the final show the band would perform under the giant "pizza oven" lighting rig. It would be revamped for the upcoming Crazy Tour. About a minute of this show was shown on German TV not long after the show. ![]() Pictures 8 through 45 were taken by Wolfgang Trabitzsch (who also submitted pic 54), pic 55 was taken by Sarb Hannes Schmid, and pics 59 and 60 were taken by Franz Kühne. Some of the other pictures were submitted by Janneman and Alessio Rizzitelli. |
Recording length: | 93 minutes (2 CD, incomplete) |
Quality: | C+ |
Source: | Audience |
Lineage: | AUD > ? > CDR (x) |
Track listing: | We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, If You Can't Beat Them, Mustapha, Death On Two Legs, Killer Queen, I'm In Love With My Car, Get Down Make Love, You're My Best Friend, Now I'm Here, Somebody To Love, Spread Your Wings, Love Of My Life, Keep Yourself Alive, guitar/drum solos [cut], Brighton Rock (ending), Bohemian Rhapsody, Tie Your Mother Down, Sheer Heart Attack, Jailhouse Rock, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen |
This audience recording is very distant, as the people close to the tape recorder often drain out the music. Unfortunately they talk quite a bit throughout. Brian is playing a great solo at the end of Spread Your Wings, and these audience members start singing the chorus of the song again (and it doesn't help that their voices are horrible), making him inaudible. |