Queen – A Very Special Night LP

Queen – A Very Special Night

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Label:Mardy Bum Records – BUM77 - NLT77-A/BFormat:Vinyl, LP, Album, Special Edition, Unofficial Release,

Country:ItalyReleased:2024Genre:RockStyle:Arena Rock, Hard Rock, Prog Rock

Tracklist

A1Tie Your Mother DownA2Keep Yourself AliveA3Somebody To LoveA4White ManA5The Prophet's SongB1LiarB2Bohemian Rhapsody (intro)B3Now I'm HereB4See What A Fool I've Been

Notes

Recorded live at New London Theatre Centre, London, England on October, 6th, 1977 - Audience recording.

Jailhouse Rock was also played this evening but is missing on this album.

After doing the video shoot for We Are The Champions with members of the fan club in the audience, the band played an unexpected set afterwards. The event was MC'd by Bob Harris, who announced to the fans before the video shoot that the band would play a special set just for them after a few takes of Champions. The fans are excited beyond belief by this proclamation, as it is a complete surprise to them. Between takes, Bob says there are extra cameras present to film a Queen documentary to be seen around Christmas or in the new year, but the documentary would never make it past the final editing stage.

1977 was a year of transition for Queen, and this unique live set gives a very telling glimpse of where the band are heading.

Sitting at the piano before Somebody To Love, Freddie says, "I must say, this is more interesting than doing Earls Court, I think," much to the delight of the few hundred on hand (most of whom probably attended the Earls Court shows!). Brian messes up the queue back into the song after Freddie's vocal solo and remarks afterwards that it was "A little rusty there, I think." Freddie then says, "It's right into the microphone," perhaps indicating that shouldn't have been said out loud. He quickly changes the subject and asks what the audience would like to hear next. Amongst the shouts are Liar, Great King Rat, Stone Cold Crazy, even the non-album track Hangman - and Freddie saying with a chuckle, "We've done We Are The Champions!"

The loose and experimental version of White Man / The Prophet's Song sounds much more like the middle section of (the not-yet-released) Get Down Make Love because it's Brian's guitar that has the harmonization effects rather than Freddie's voice. This is the first time Brian would use the EBow on stage.

After a superb version of Liar, the band played the first half of Bohemian Rhapsody. After May's guitar solo, he launches right into Now I'm Here since backing tapes aren't being used at this show. This is notably the first time the high guitar parts aren't heard after "I'm just a" on playback (until now the sample from the album was triggered by the front-of-house sound engineer).

Overall the band are in fine form, and they are clearly happy to give the fan club members a great set. Also worth noting is that this is undoubtedly the greatest live version of See What A Fool I've Been. Freddie sings it passionately and aggressively, a complete 180 from the campy delivery of the studio version. His voice is much more accomplished, having blossomed greatly in the year and a half since they had last played the song. This would turn out to be the final performance of the Seven Seas Of Rhye B-side.

Barcode and Other Identifiers

• Matrix / Runout (Side A): 171624E1/A
• Matrix / Runout (Side B): 171624E2/B