City: | São Paulo, Brazil |
Venue: | Estádio Cícero Pompeu de Toledo |
Date: | March 20, 1981 |
Setlist: | We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Play The Game, Somebody To Love, 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), Fat Bottomed Girls, Love Of My Life, Keep Yourself Alive, drum/guitar solos, Flash, The Hero, 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 |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
|
"Morumbi Stadium" is a nickname for the venue, as Morumbi is a small district of São Paulo. The shows in São Paulo are among the most important of Queen's career. They play to 131,000 people tonight and another 120,000 tomorrow night, the largest paying audiences ever to see Queen, and the largest paying audiences for a single band at the time. When the Rio show was cancelled, this extra night in São Paulo was booked, and it sold out very quickly. The band are interviewed on TV before the show. Just as the host, Eron Domingues, sits down beside Freddie, Mr. Mercury quips, "Sit on my lap." After being asked how he feels about playing for this many people, Freddie, with his usual quick wit, replies, "I haven't done it yet!" He then says the band are looking forward to it, and hopes everyone has a good time. The concert was then broadcast live on TV. Regrettably, even the best copies of the video aren't anything to write home about, because the quality of Brazilian TV wasn't great in the early 80s. The show was broadcast at least a couple more times later in the year. The first rebroadcast was a week after the show at the same time, and it is the only known broadcast of the complete show, audio or video, without any of the voice-overs. The next rebroadcast was a few months later, a 45-minute version with a red "Queen Special" shown at the beginning and before commercial breaks - and with many different camera angles. Thanks to Marcos Napier for all the details on the various versions. It is priceless footage, as it shows Freddie Mercury part way through Love Of My Life standing and clapping in sheer amazement, after having witnessed this many people who don't understand English sing his song perfectly without him. Freddie has rested his voice and sounds fantastic overall tonight. The rest the band are in fine shape as well, with the only slight exception of Brian taking a couple bars to settle into the guitar solo in Somebody To Love. But it is a small blemish on an otherwise perfect night of epic proportions. In one of the video rebroadcasts, footage of the audience was copied and pasted around (for lack of a better term), sometimes with humourous results. For example, footage of an audience member playing air guitar during the fast We Will Rock You is shown again during the ballad of the evening, Love Of My Life. Most of the pictures were submitted by Alessio Rizzitelli and Fabio Minero. The first photo set is from a press conference at Maksoud Plaza, shortly after the band arrived in Brazil. Seven minutes of footage from soundcheck were broadcast on Argentinan TV. ![]() Part of this concert was officially released as part of the "On Air" box set in 2016, containing Queen's complete BBC sessions for the first time, as well as live material and interviews. The sound quality of the São Paulo material is better than any of the circulating bootleg and radio recordings. The tracks included are: We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, I'm In Love With My Car, part of Now I'm Here, Dragon Attack, Now I'm Here (reprise), Love Of My Life The fifth concert picture was taken by Antonio Henrique Seligman. Here are a couple more pics from before the show: 1 2 Freddie recalled the gig in a 1982 interview with Music Life magazine in Japan: "It was our first performance in Brazil, and the people of Brazil didn't really know what kind of band we were, so it seemed like for everything, no one really knew what to do. It's true that it was really one of the biggest events we'd had in our tours. It was truly wonderful, and even we were unexpectedly surprised. Even if we do our regular routine, how they feel it in their bodies is a completely new thing. There are no rules about how to feel our music, so their reactions were totally natural." |
Recording length: | 96 minutes (2 CD, incomplete) |
Quality: | A |
Source: | Radio |
Lineage: | Radio Bandeirantes live broadcast > Chrome Cassette > PRO Audio CD > WAV > FLAC level 7 |
Track listing: | We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Play The Game, Somebody To Love, I'm In Love With My Car, Get Down Make Love, Need Your Loving Tonight, Save Me, Now I'm Here [cut], Dragon Attack, Now I'm Here (reprise), Fat Bottomed Girls, Love Of My Life, Keep Yourself Alive, drum/guitar solos, Flash, The Hero, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Bohemian Rhapsody, Tie Your Mother Down, Another One Bites The Dust [cut], Sheer Heart Attack, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions |
This recording is from the mono live radio broadcast. There is DJ commentary between songs, and it is cut on many subsequent bootlegs of the broadcast (unfortunately there is also commentary during Freddie's vocal solo at the peak of Somebody To Love). The encores dip a bit in quality, and the tape speed is a tad slower. The only major bit missing from this copy is Freddie's vocal exchange with the audience in Now I'm Here. A radio station called "Jovem Pan 2 FM" broadcast the concert live in stereo sound, but a recording has never seen the light of day. Del Rey FM radio in Belo Horizonte also broadcast the show a week later. There is apparently an audience recording from this show out there as well. |
Recording length: | 97 minutes (2 CD, incomplete) |
Quality: | A |
Source: | Radio |
Lineage: | Radio Bandeirantes 1984 rebroadcast > Cassette > CDR (1) |
Track listing: | We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Play The Game, Somebody To Love, 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), Fat Bottomed Girls, Love Of My Life, Keep Yourself Alive, drum/guitar solos, Flash, The Hero, 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 |
Radio Bandeirantes broadcast the show again a few years later, with a few different edits between songs. |