City: Essen, Germany
Venue: Grugahalle
Date: November 29, 1980

Setlist:
Jailhouse Rock, We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Play The Game, Mustapha, Death On Two Legs, Killer Queen, 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), Love Of My Life, Keep Yourself Alive, drum/guitar solos, Battle Theme, The Hero, Brighton Rock (ending), 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


         

These pictures were taken by Helmut Brasse. The one of Brian May on the riser was snapped during his solo spot, not long before the first ever performance of The Hero. They play it in the original key, with Freddie needing to improvise the melody lines in many places as they are ever so high on the studio version. Roger sings the original melody in a few places to help out while Freddie's contributions end up sounding more like harmony lines.

Battle Theme has been cut down to half the length, as the guitar riff is the same as the one off the top of The Hero. Queen would play the latter at every show from now through the 1982 European tour, and at three of the six Japanese 1982 shows.

In Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Brian plays a pretty inspired solo that sounds little like the album.

Tonight sees a unique version of Tie Your Mother Down. Brian breaks a string at the beginning of the first chorus, so he needs to rush to grab a spare guitar - but he doesn't grab it in time for his big riff connecting the chorus to the second verse, forcing Roger to do a big snare fill in his guitarist's absence to fill in the otherwise empty aural space. Brian then comes in at the beginning of the verse. However, his new guitar doesn't have the slide for the second half of the guitar solo (he always kept it inside his guitar strap), so he mostly plays the rhythm part. And finally, with only a few bars of the song remaining, Freddie says "Take it home" in a tone that suggests he'll be happy once the song (and the set proper) is over!


Recording length: 90 minutes (2 CD, incomplete)
Quality: A-
Source: Audience
Lineage: AUD > Cassette (x) > ? > WAV > FLAC level 8
Track listing:
Jailhouse Rock, We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Play The Game, Mustapha, Death On Two Legs, Killer Queen, 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) [cut], Love Of My Life, Keep Yourself Alive, drum/guitar solos, Battle Theme, The Hero, Brighton Rock (ending), Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Tie Your Mother Down, Another One Bites The Dust, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen


This is a great copy of the original source from Essen, certainly a first or second generation copy as it stems from someone who received it from the taper.

For some reason Bohemian Rhapsody and Sheer Heart Attack are missing from this source. The fades out/in at these points in the recording can only suggest the songs were intentionally removed by someone down the line.

At the end of the recording, the taper says, in German, "There's still much room left on the tape. Concerts are getting shorter and shorter."


Recording length: 98 minutes (incomplete)
Quality: B+
Source: Audience
Lineage: AUD > 2nd generation tape > Aiwa Tape Deck TC-WE475 > Audiophile 2496 Soundblaster > HD > SoundForge 7.0 > CD Wave > FLAC Frontend (level 6)
Track listing:
Jailhouse Rock, We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Play The Game, Mustapha, Death On Two Legs, Killer Queen, 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) [cut], Love Of My Life, Keep Yourself Alive, drum/guitar solos, Battle Theme, The Hero, Brighton Rock (ending), 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 an alternate source with the missing songs. The sound is pretty clear on this upgraded copy that emerged in 2012.

There is a tiny cut in the Now I'm Here reprise for a tape flip, so this portion is missing from both sources.


Recording length: 2 CDR
Quality: ?
Source: Audience
Lineage: "Flash To The Show" (Breakdown)

 
Track listing:
Jailhouse Rock, We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Play The Game, Mustapha, Death On Two Legs, Killer Queen, 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), Love Of My Life, Keep Yourself Alive, drum/guitar solos, Battle Theme, The Hero, Brighton Rock (ending), 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 2010 bootleg is presumably the first source with an inferior copy of source 2 filling in the gaps.


Recording length: 2 CDR
Quality: ?
Source: Audience
Lineage: "Battle In Essen" (Uxbridge)

     
Track listing:
Jailhouse Rock, We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Play The Game, Mustapha, Death On Two Legs, Killer Queen, 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), Love Of My Life, Keep Yourself Alive, drum/guitar solos, Battle Theme, The Hero, Brighton Rock (ending), 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


Uxbridge bootlegged the show in 2012.




Previous Concert

Next Concert

Back to 1980 Concerts