City: London, UK
Venue: Wembley Arena
Date: December 9, 1980

Setlist:
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, Save Me, Now I'm Here, Dragon Attack, Now I'm Here (reprise), Fat Bottomed Girls, Love Of My Life, Imagine, drum/guitar solos, Battle Theme, Flash, The Hero, Brighton Rock (ending), Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, Another One Bites The Dust, Sheer Heart Attack, Tie Your Mother Down, God Save The Queen



Queen skip Jailhouse Rock on the second night, perhaps because they have planned to play another cover song later in the set.

In light of John Lennon's assassination the night before, Queen hastily put together a version of Imagine to be performed tonight. Freddie recited the lyrics from a scrap piece of paper. The performance is far from spotless, but any flaws were secondary to the intent. It is clearly an emotionally challenging task for the band to deliver this iconic song written by one of their heroes on such an occasion, and the gesture is much appreciated by the audience who give them a standing ovation afterward. A fan recalls, "I particularly remember Roger being very upset and biting his hand to hold back the tears."

They skip Keep Yourself Alive (marking the first time the band play no songs from their first couple albums), and Brian jumps straight into his guitar solo. This would be the last time the band would finish this section of the show off with the ending of Brighton Rock. They probably dropped it because they felt it was too long between songs familiar to the majority of the audience. It would be resurrected for the Works tour in 1984.

Freddie then grabs his 12-string acoustic guitar and says, "Okay, I'm gonna do a Jimi Hendrix impersonation in a song called Crazy Little Thing Called Love." This off-the-cuff comment perhaps came from him thinking about other rock musicians who had died before their time.

Pete Townshend and his wife Karen attended the show. Pete later remarked, "I thought they were the maddest band I'd ever seen." He added that Queen were the only band in his eyes that took on the mantle of The Who by doing it their way with a brashness and Britishness that nobody else really had.

The picture was taken by Martin de Jong.


Recording length: 98 minutes (2 CD, incomplete)
Quality: B
Source: Audience
Lineage: AUD > ? > CDR (x)
Track listing:
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 [cut], Save Me, Now I'm Here, Dragon Attack, Now I'm Here (reprise), Fat Bottomed Girls, Love Of My Life, Imagine, drum/guitar solos, Battle Theme, Flash, The Hero, Brighton Rock (ending), Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, Another One Bites The Dust, Sheer Heart Attack, Tie Your Mother Down, God Save The Queen


This is a reasonably good copy of this important show, but it's likely far from the master. There's a slight cut at the beginning of Get Down Make Love for a tape flip.




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