City: | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
Venue: | Barra da Tijuca |
Date: | January 19, 1985 |
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, Rock In Rio Blues, It's A Hard Life, Dragon Attack, Now I'm Here, Is This The World We Created?, Love Of My Life, guitar solo, Brighton Rock (ending), Another One Bites The Dust, Mustapha (intro), Hammer To Fall, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Bohemian Rhapsody, Radio Ga Ga, I Want To Break Free, Jailhouse Rock, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen |
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The second night in Rio is as epic as the first. Freddie's voice isn't in quite as good shape as it was last week, but he and the band give their all in a show that would turn out to be a final farewell. This concert marks the end of Queen's love affair with South America, a continent where the band played a dozen shows to over a million people. Brian isn't able to grab his slide in time for the Tie Your Mother Down guitar solo, and the end result is an aggressive and unique take on it. He also lets it rip in the improv section of Keep Yourself Alive. In the piano bit between Somebody To Love and Killer Queen, Freddie leads the band into the The March Of The Black Queen jam as he did in Sun City last year. This would happen many times in 1985. The vocal harmonies in Liar are excellent. The improvisation section before It's A Hard Life is much longer tonight, consisting of a few lines reworked for the Brazilian audience. It would be officially released in the UK in 1995 as "Rock In Rio Blues", on the "A Winter's Tale" CD single. It was also released on the US CD single of "Too Much Love Will Kill You" in 1995, and later on disc 2 of the 2011 deluxe edition of the final Queen album, "Made In Heaven." After It's A Hard Life, Freddie begins his vocal duel with the audience with a few bits he used in Now I'm Here a few years back. At the end of it, he proclaims, "Everybody's beautiful". He does some superb improv at the beginning of Now I'm Here, which is seen on the official VHS. Brian, before Is This The World We Created, referring to his electric classical guitar: "I have no idea if this little bugger's gonna stay in tune, but we'll try this anyway." Freddie messes up the lyrics of the second chorus, singing "Is this the world we devestated, against the bone" instead of "right to the bone." It's otherwise a very nice version of the ballad. He then introduces Love Of My Life: "You want to sing with us? Alright. Well, this is especially for you." He changes the subject briefly, saying "I hope you're not too wet out there," as it is raining throughout the show. He continues, "I have to tell you that this song is very special to the people of South America, and we thank you very much for making it special throughtout the world. This is called Love Of My Life." As seen on the video, both he and Freddie are clearly moved by a quarter of a million people, most of whose first language isn't English, singing the song perfectly. The audience chant Brian's name throughout the interlude, and in the emotion of the moment he has to carefully make his way through it. During his solo spot, Brian plays bits of "Let Me Out", one of the songs from his 1983 solo mini-LP with Eddie Van Halen and others called "Star Fleet Project". He began his solo with an EBow, as he did last week in Rio. This is the last time he has played with an EBow live to date. Freddie's emotive ending to Bohemian Rhapsody is one-of-a-kind. Like last week, Freddie introduces Radio Ga Ga - the only times he would do this. In light of last week's incident, Freddie doesn't come out with his boobs and wig for I Want To Break Free, as seen on the official VHS. The hour-long (48 minutes without commercials) Globo TV broadcast of this concert was watched by about 200 million people. It showed some shots from different angles than were seen on the official release. The following songs were shown: Tear It Up, Tie Your Mother Down, Under Pressure, Somebody To Love, Killer Queen, Seven Seas Of Rhye, Keep Yourself Alive, Liar, Rock In Rio Blues, It's A Hard Life, Dragon Attack, Now I'm Here, Love Of My Life, and Crazy Little Thing Called Love. In the last song, John is seen smirking at Freddie's overt Elvis impression in the second verse. We Are The Champions from the second night was also aired on Globo TV. ![]() Brian and John appeared on MTV Japan in May to promote the VHS release, and clips from both Rio shows were shown. The clips of Love Of My Life, I Want To Break Free, We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions are from the second night (the last two songs are notable, as the first night was used for those songs on the video release). On February 25, Brian would make a guest appearance on a radio show and he actually acted as the DJ for an hour or two. He had a few words to say when asked if he had an outstanding memory from Rio: "Just looking at the crowd, really. We never quite believed that it was going to happen and we were going to get quarter of a million people a night or whatever, and it just actually happened. They all rolled up and one night it was pouring with rain and they were still there until two in the morning from four in the afternoon. It was very well organized and very well lit which is unusual so you could actually see the audience very well, all in pools of different coloured lights. I think there is going to be a video of that some time and perhaps people will be able to see, but it was quite something I must say. And there was the feeling of it being the first time, which it was, because there never was that much rock and roll in Rio. Now there is mate, I tell you!" This version of Love Of My Life was released on a cassette single in the US. It is a more raw mix, as the audience was artificially piped up for much of the official VHS release. A few more words from Brian and Freddie are heard before and after the song than on the VHS. The fifth picture was taken by Antonio Henrique Seligman, and the last one was taken by Dave Matkin. Here are some pro pics from the second night: 1 2 3 4 More pictures from this show can be found at http://www.repfoto.com. You have to register as a user. |
Recording length: | 118 minutes (2 CD, incomplete) |
Quality: | B |
Source: | Audience |
Lineage: | AUD > ? > CDR (x) |
Track listing: | Machines (tape), Tear It Up, Tie Your Mother Down, Under Pressure, Somebody To Love [cut], Killer Queen, Seven Seas Of Rhye, Keep Yourself Alive, Liar, Rock In Rio Blues, It's A Hard Life [cut], Dragon Attack, Now I'm Here, Is This The World We Created?, Love Of My Life, guitar solo [cut], Brighton Rock (ending), Another One Bites The Dust, Mustapha (intro), Hammer To Fall, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Bohemian Rhapsody, Radio Ga Ga [cut], I Want To Break Free, Jailhouse Rock, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions [cut], God Save The Queen [cut], Rock In Rio theme song |
The sound on the audience recording itself is generally well-balanced. Disc 2 plays a bit slow, but is from a lower generation copy. The official release was used to fill in the gap in It's A Hard Life, even though it was from the first night. The gap near the end of Radio Ga Ga is filled in with another show (an Nth gen copy of one of the Milan '84 audience tapes), and the bulk of God Save The Queen is filled in with some other show. After the speed is corrected and the superfluous parts are removed, the recording is 112 minutes long. |