City: London, UK
Venue: Wembley Arena
Date: September 5, 1984

Setlist:
Machines (tape), Tear It Up, Tie Your Mother Down, Under Pressure, Somebody To Love, Killer Queen, Seven Seas Of Rhye, Keep Yourself Alive, Liar, It's A Hard Life, Staying Power, Dragon Attack, Now I'm Here, Is This The World We Created?, Love Of My Life, Stone Cold Crazy, Great King Rat, keyboard solo, guitar solo, Brighton Rock (ending), Another One Bites The Dust, Hammer To Fall, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting, Bohemian Rhapsody, Radio Ga Ga, I Want To Break Free, Jailhouse Rock, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen



 
                                     
                                                             
                 

Tonight is Freddie Mercury's 38th birthday, and it presents a very warm atmosphere in the arena throughout. Before Staying Power the audience sing Happy Birthday to him, but it wouldn't be the first reference to the occasion.

In Staying Power, Freddie skips the "I wonder when we're gonna make it; I wonder when we're gonna shake it" lines, perhaps because they're difficult to sing and he wants to save his voice that has weakened considerably since the start of the tour.

After the Dragon Attack guitar solo, there is a breathtaking duel between Brian and Freddie: very high guitar notes versus very high and powerful operatic falsetto vocal. This improvised section of the song would be different on every night of the tour.

The audience sing Happy Birthday again before Love Of My Life, but Freddie is off the stage for a moment, as Brian quietly says, "It's not my birthday." He adds, "I'm sorry, he's gone home. It's his birthday." He diddles on his 12-string for a second, and continues, mentioning "Our mine of useless information tonight." He says this because he already told the story about his new electric classical guitar before the last song. "We just heard tonight that The Works went to five hundred thousand in Britain. Thank you for buying it!"

Brian then begins Love Of My Life with the audience, and Freddie comes back on stage to sing the second verse. Before he can begin, someone hands him a birthday gift, to which he asks, "What is it, a jock strap?" He and Brian then perform the second verse, after which the song is interrupted again as someone else has a birthday card for Freddie. He says, "Someone sent me a card. I gotta open it, so hang on a minute." Stopping a concert to open a gift is something few performers could get away with! He reads it to himself, and says, laughing, "I can't read this. It's even too filthy for me!" They resume the song, and in the bridge, after "When I grow older," Freddie quickly adds "Thirty-eight", and continues along.

After the song, the audience sing Happy Birthday once again, and Freddie briefly replies this time. "Thank you, thank you. Let's get on with it."

Brian's solo has some very unique and melodic elements tonight.

Freddie dedicates Another One Bites The Dust to "anybody that's black and anybody that's called Aretha," and introduces Hammer To Fall as "one of those heavy headbanger things." Dust and Hammer To Fall have swapped in the setlist, and it would remain that way through 1985.

Before Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Freddie says how he initially knew three chords and that he now still only knows three! He always exaggerated this in good fun, as he certainly was a very functional guitar player, having written Ogre Battle on the guitar back in 1973.

A fan recalls: "I remember a large cake being wheeled on and Freddie spraying the front of the crowd with champagne as it was his birthday."

Here is a very complimentary review of the show, especially in the first few paragraphs (although making Eddie Van Halen out to be inferior to Brian May is kind of pushing it): http://www.queencuttings.com

The third set of concert photos was taken by Paul Webb. Some of the aftershow party pictures were submitted by Alessio Rizzitelli. Billy Connolly and Kenny Everett are seen in the ninth pic, and the last one shows the band with Rick Parfitt of Status Quo, whom they asked to join them on stage a couple nights later.


Recording length: 103 minutes (2 CD, incomplete)
Quality: B
Source: Audience
Lineage: AUD > Master Cassette > 1st Gen Cassette > ? > CDR (x)
Track listing:
Machines (tape), Tear It Up, Tie Your Mother Down, Under Pressure, Somebody To Love, Killer Queen, Seven Seas Of Rhye, Keep Yourself Alive, Liar, It's A Hard Life, Staying Power, Dragon Attack, Now I'm Here, Is This The World We Created?, Love Of My Life, Stone Cold Crazy, Great King Rat, keyboard solo [cut], guitar solo, Brighton Rock (ending), Another One Bites The Dust, Hammer To Fall, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting, Bohemian Rhapsody, Radio Ga Ga, I Want To Break Free, Jailhouse Rock, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen


This is a nice upgrade to previous high gen copies, but the first few minutes are still a bit muffled. The tape plays a bit too fast.




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