by Georg Purvis
JAZZ JAPANESE TOUR
13 APRIL TO 6 MAY 1979
Musicians: John Deacon (bass guitar, fretless bass on ‘’39’), Brian May (guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar on ‘Love Of My Life’ and ‘’39’), Freddie Mercury (vocals, piano, maracas, tambourine), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals, bass drum and tambourine on ‘’39’, lead vocals on ‘I’m In Love With My Car’)
Repertoire: ‘We Will Rock You’ (fast), ‘Let Me Entertain You’, ‘Somebody To Love’, ‘If You Can’t Beat Them’, ‘Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to......’ / ‘Killer Queen’ / ‘Bicycle Race’ / ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ / ‘Get Down, Make Love’ / ‘You’re My Best Friend’, ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)’, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, ‘Spread Your Wings’, ‘Dreamers Ball’, ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘’39’, ‘It’s Late’, ‘Brighton Rock’, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, ‘Sheer Heart Attack’, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘God Save The Queen’, ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’, ‘Mustapha’ (intro), ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘Big Spender’
Itinerary:
April 13/14: Budokan Hall, Tokyo
April 19/20: Festival Hall, Osaka
April 21: Practica Ethics Commemoration Hall, Kanazawa
April 23-25: Budokan Hall, Tokyo
April 27: Central International Display, Kobe
April 28: International Display, Nagoya
April 30/May 1: Kyuden Athletic Association, Fukuoka
May 2: Prefectural Athletic Association, Yamaguchi
May 5/6: Makomani Ice Arena, Sapporo
While Live Killers was being assembled between tours in Montreux for a June release, the band went off to Japan after a six-week break, their first visit since 1976. This time, they were able to perform Brian’s tribute to the country, ‘Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)’, which featured the guitarist appearing on piano for the first, but certainly not the last, time.
Freddie’s voice was starting to falter during these shows, and was a lesson in preservation for the singer on what was undoubtedly one of Queen’s longest tours. He would go to better lengths in the future to ensure optimal rest was taken on his already strained cords. Unfortunately, this meant that ‘Spread Your Wings’, ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ and ‘If You Can’t Beat Them’ were compromised, though they would return later in the year.
SAARBRÜKEN FESTIVAL
18 AUGUST 1979
Musicians: John Deacon (bass guitar), Brian May (guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar on ‘Love Of My Life’), Freddie Mercury (vocals, piano, maracas, tambourine), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals, lead vocals on ‘I’m In Love With My Car’)
Repertoire: ‘We Will Rock You’ (fast), ‘Let Me Entertain You’, ‘If You Can’t Beat Them’, ‘Mustapha’ / ‘Death On Two Legs’ / ‘Killer Queen’ / ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ / ‘Get Down, Make Love’ / ‘You’re My Best Friend’, ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Somebody To Love’, ‘Spread Your Wings’, ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, Drum Solo / Guitar Solo, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, ‘Sheer Heart Attack’, ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘God Save The Queen’
Queen weren’t known for playing festivals, preferring to stick to extensive tours where the musical performance and quality were at a peak instead of one-offs that were inevitably unpredictable, at best. Surprisingly, they accepted an invitation to be headliners at the August 1979 Saarbrüken Festival over such artists as Rory Gallagher, Red Baron, Molly Hatchet, Albert Lee and Ten Years After, Lake, Voyager and The Commodores, and with 30,000 people in attendance, they realized that such a show would be good for their profile in Germany.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of their best gigs: the set was riddled with technical difficulties that finally caused Roger to destroy his drum set at the conclusion of the show. As if that wasn’t enough, he had also attempted to bleach his hair earlier in the day, but had applied too much and seen his hair turn bright green.
CRAZY TOUR
22 NOVEMBER TO 22 DECEMBER 1979
Musicians: John Deacon (bass guitar, fretless bass on ‘’39’), Brian May (guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar on ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘’39’, and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, piano on ‘Save Me’), Freddie Mercury (vocals, piano, acoustic guitar on ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals, lead vocals on ‘I’m In Love With My Car’, bass drum and tambourine on ‘’39’)
Repertoire: ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘We Will Rock You’ (fast), ‘Let Me Entertain You’, ‘If You Can’t Beat Them’, ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’, ‘Somebody To Love’, ‘Mustapha’ / ‘Death On Two Legs’ / ‘Killer Queen’ / ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ / ‘Get Down, Make Love’ / ‘You’re My Best Friend’, ‘Save Me’, ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, ‘Spread Your Wings’, ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘’39’, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, Drum Solo/Guitar Solo, ‘Brighton Rock Reprise’, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, ‘Sheer Heart Attack’, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘God Save The Queen’
Itinerary:
November 22: Royal Dublin Society Hall, Dublin, Eire
November 24: National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham
November 26/27: Apollo Theatre, Manchester
November 30/December 1: Apollo Theatre, Glasgow
December 3/4: City Hall, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
December 6/7: Empire Theatre, Liverpool
December 9: Hippodrome, Bristol
December 10/11: Brighton Centre, Brighton
December 13: Lyceum Ballroom, London
December 14: Rainbow Theatre, London
December 17: Tiffany’s, Purley, London
December 19: Tottenham Mayfair, London
December 20: Lewisham Odeon, London
December 22: Alexandra Palace, London
The last time Queen had toured England was in May 1978, with a meagre five-date run that hardly left their fans satisfied. In an effort to reconnect with their estranged fellow countrymen, Gerry Stickells was dispatched to find suitable venues in which the band could perform, with only one caveat: there was to be none of the expansive stadia the band had filled over the past three years, but more intimate settings that a band of their stature would normally avoid.
“We had played the big places,” Brian explained, “and although we loved them and felt it was good that more and more people could come and see us, we also felt we were losing touch with the audience. Our whole show was about audience contact: we felt close to them, they felt close to us. But with those big places they were so far away, so distant. So we got Gerry Stickells to find some small, silly venues for us. We didn’t want just ordinary little theatres; we wanted places that were different. We played the medium-sized places first, then the daft ones. We called it the Crazy Tour and thoroughly enjoyed it!”
The Crazy Tour, a clever double entendre indicating not only the eccentricity of going back to smaller venues but also the recent success of the ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ single, started on 22 November 1979 with Queen’s first concert in Ireland – though it was supposed to start two days earlier in Cork, this was canceled for reasons unknown. The songs performed hadn’t changed much, though the order was frequently switched, as there were often multiple shows in one city and the band wanted to offer a different show for fans who might have been travelling a bit. The fast version of ‘We Will Rock You’ was moved to second place in the set, and was replaced by ‘Let Me Entertain You’ for a handful of shows. ‘Jailhouse Rock’ was also introduced as a set opener for a few shows, and ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ was occasionally moved from late in the set to the second song performed. Two new songs, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and the newly recorded yet still unreleased ‘Save Me’, were also introduced. The former featured Freddie strumming away on an acoustic guitar for the first time, while the latte
r featured Brian on piano, the first time that British fans would see Brian playing the instrument.
The opening night in Dublin was one of the rare occasions when ‘God Save The Queen’ was not performed over the PA system; instead, the show ended with ‘We Are The Champions’, though a specially rehearsed rendition of ‘Danny Boy’ was performed before ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ during the first encore. The tour also saw the reappearance of The Royal Family, a loyal clan of fans who had travelled around Europe all year to see Queen play live, and they showed their loyalty by starting a conga line during ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ in Birmingham. Later in Glasgow, they left a note backstage that asked for ‘Liar’ to be performed, or else the band wouldn’t make it out of the city alive. In keeping with the spontaneous nature of the tour – and perhaps fearing for their lives a little – the Queen album track was brought out of mothballs.
Also in Glasgow, an embarrassing moment came when Roger, despite having sung ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ nightly since November 1977, had a mental block and completely forgot the words to his own song. What followed was a semi-instrumental version that featured the drummer repeatedly singing the only line he could remember before Freddie jumped in to save the performance with some equally dodgy lyrics. In Liverpool, Brian and Freddie performed a brief, off-the-cuff rendition of Wings’ ‘Mull Of Kintyre’, with Freddie quipping that he’ll be Linda McCartney. Wings, also on their own tour of the UK, had just performed in Liverpool the week before.
On 19 December, the band played in one of the smallest venues of the tour – a venue in Tottenham so small that they were unable to fit their already stripped-back lighting rig onto the stage and had to play with the venue’s lights instead; interestingly, the same problem had been encountered at the Lyceum on the 13th, forcing the crew to drill two holes in the ceiling. More startlingly, Gerry Stickells, who had been on tour with Queen as their manager for three years, had collapsed backstage due to exhaustion earlier in the tour and was rushed to a local hospital. “The doctors told me to take it easy for a while,” he explained, “but none of them have ever been on the road with Queen. That advice is almost impossible to take. The tour might have been small in venue size, but it was a hassle. Some of the places were so tiny that trying to cram in a band the size of Queen was nigh on impossible. But that’s what they pay me for, working miracles.”
The critics approached the band’s return to smaller venues with surprisingly open minds. Following Queen’s first-ever show in Ireland, the Dublin Evening Press offered more of a career retrospective than an actual review, though the writer was clearly impressed: “Queen in concert is a theatrical experience, a complete show. There’s the excellence of the band’s music, a heritage which goes back over eight enormously successful albums, several box office breaking world tours and smash singles ... The blurbs will tell you that their show is two hours of Queen in direct contact with their audience, and that’s exactly how it is.” Birmingham Evening Mail was complimentary: “The range and versatility that have elevated Queen to supergroup status was all there. But the outfit were forced to pump out such volume to fill the [NEC Hall] that the distortion of the sound ruined the effect ... I didn’t think the intricate recordings that Queen delight in would be possible to recreate live. And they weren’t quite, but they came so close you couldn’t complain.” Sounds, meanwhile, had to be won over: “Ever considered Queen’s songs seriously? Ever really listened to them? I haven’t. I’ve been far too busy listening to that old chunkachunka dub to really take any notice of this bunch of shrink-wrapped unit shifters. But consider for me the moment the total absurdity of a song called ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’. A messy, meandering, annoying tune that shows absolutely no direction at all. Useless mocking lyrics that refuse to vacate your mind. You end up wondering just what kind of genius makes you sing along to such rubbish ... The fans sang along, ecstatic and carefree, and once more I wonder why. Why were they singing such empty lyrics? What could these words possibly mean to them, and yet, every line had been memorized and was chanted with almost religious fervor. Perhaps it’s the Queen method of filling in the empty lifestyles of their supporters. Pure fantasy. A musical James Bond movie. Queen are exceptionally important and must be admired, despite the fact that they will never be considered hip again. I left the Apollo in a state of absolute amazement. The realization that I’d actually enjoyed every second of a credibility-blowing Queen gig was beginning to burn away at my confused mind. There is no hope for me now.”
The tour wound up at Alexandra Palace on 22 December with the filming of the promotional video for ‘Save Me’. At the same show, Freddie walked on stage during the second encore of ‘We Will Rock You’ in his silver lurex suit with a bunch of bananas, throwing them into the audience for reasons known only to him. Perhaps the bananas were a metaphor for Queen’s craziest idea for a tour yet – while Alexandra Palace held 3,000 people, some of the smallest venues on the tour were clubs with a capacity of a few hundred. From this point forward, Queen would never be able to pull off a stunt like this again.
CONCERTS FOR THE PEOPLE OF KAMPUCHEA
26 DECEMBER 1979
Musicians: John Deacon (bass guitar, fretless bass on ‘’39’), Brian May (guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar on ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘’39’ and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, piano on ‘Save Me’), Freddie Mercury (vocals, piano, acoustic guitar on ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals, lead vocals on ‘I’m In Love With My Car’, bass drum and tambourine on ‘’39’)
Repertoire: ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘We Will Rock You’ (fast), ‘Let Me Entertain You’, ‘Somebody To Love’, ‘If You Can’t Beat Them’, ‘Mustapha’ / ‘Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to......’ / ‘Killer Queen’ / ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ / ‘Get Down, Make Love’ / ‘You’re My Best Friend’, ‘Save Me’, ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, ‘Spread Your Wings’, ‘Love Of My Life’, ‘’39’, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, ‘Brighton Rock’, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, ‘Sheer Heart Attack’, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘God Save The Queen’
In July 1979, just as Queen were finishing recording sessions in Munich, they were approached by Paul McCartney, asking if they would be interested in taking part in a series of concerts to raise money for the people of Kampuchea. The band agreed and were given the coveted time slot of performing as the sole band on the first night, 26 December. Other bands on the bill consisted mostly of the kind of acts who had helped confer ‘dinosaur’ status on Queen (and McCartney): The Clash, Ian Dury and The Blockheads, The Pretenders, Rockpile, The Specials and Elvis Costello and The Attractions were all invited to perform, while only Queen, Paul McCartney and Wings, and a newly reformed The Who were part of the ‘old guard’. The bill also included a specially formed supergroup called Rockestra.
The band didn’t offer any changes to their standard repertoire, running through their well-rehearsed set with the recently added ‘Save Me’ and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ thrown in. In fact, at the conclusion of the latter, the audience started to sing the latter song on their own, causing the band to come back in with a reprise.
Musically, the band were tight, delivering a terrific set that closely mirrored the Live Killers album, but with enough additional material – especially a soaring ‘Somebody To Love’ and superb ‘If You Can’t Beat Them’, both absent from that album – to make the experience unique. ‘Save Me’ had yet to attain its status as a Queen classic – its single release would come the next month, thanks to the positive audience response on the Crazy Tour – but ‘Now I’m Here’ was always a powerhouse of a track; fittingly, the latter was the only Queen song included on the live compilation album of these concerts, released the following year. ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, ‘If You Can’t Beat Them’, ‘’39’ and ‘Spread Your Wings’, meanwhile, received their last-ever performances at this event.
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sp; NME was caustic about Queen’s appearance. “If my equations are right, this gig alone – the first in a sold-out series of four dedicated to Kampuchea – should raise a healthy twenty grand. Who knows, Queen may be feeding the 10,000 with their loaf of royal bran after all. But apart from the Unicef posters and Brian May briefly mentioning the cause, this was just another Queen techno-flash dry-iced affair ... Mercury still treats each precious song like a magnum opus and the audience like a cast of extras in the Cecil B. de Mille production of The Ten Commandments. (No prize for guessing Mercury’s role.)... I don’t admire Queen’s music but their gesture was unerringly sound (though it can’t be any big deal for a mega-band to donate one night’s earnings). Altogether, it’s a very long way from the Hammy Odeon to Kampuchea, but help is on the way.”
Queen’s entire set was filmed but has yet to surface anywhere officially apart from some footage thrown into the documentaries The Magic Years and Champions Of The World, usually seen with Peter Ustinov introducing the band, which he did for the 1980 re-broadcast.
1980
THE GAME NORTH AMERICAN TOUR
30 JUNE TO 30 SEPTEMBER 1980
Musicians: John Deacon (bass guitar), Brian May (guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar on ‘Love Of My Life’ and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, piano on ‘Save Me’), Freddie Mercury (vocals, piano, acoustic guitar on ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals, lead vocals on ‘I’m In Love With My Car’, timpani)
Repertoire: ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘We Will Rock You’ (fast), ‘Let Me Entertain You’, ‘Play The Game’, ‘Mustapha’ / ‘Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to......’ / ‘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’, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, ‘Instrumental Inferno’, ‘Brighton Rock’ (reprise), ‘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’, ‘You’re My Best Friend’, ‘Need Your Loving Tonight’, ‘Somebody To Love’, ‘Rock It (Prime Jive)’
