Queen: The Complete Works (102 page)

Itinerary:

November 14/15: Empire Theatre, Liverpool

November 16: Theatre, Coventry

November 17/18: Colston Hall, Bristol

November 19: Capitol, Cardiff

November 21: Odeon, Taunton

November 23: Winter Gardens, Bournemouth

November 24: Gaumont, Southampton

November 26: Free Trade Hall, Manchester (
afternoon and evening shows
)

November 29-December 2: Hammersmith Odeon, London

December 7: Civic Hall, Wolverhampton

December 8: Guildhall, Preston

December 9/10: Odeon, Birmingham

December 11: City Hall, Newcastle

December 13: Caird Hall, Dundee

December 14: Capitol, Aberdeen

December 15/16: Apollo Theatre, Glasgow

December 24: Hammersmith Odeon, London

On the strength of the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ single, Queen’s 1975 UK tour became a supremely hot ticket. This would be the last tour in which the band were able to perform in the intimate settings their relative obscurity before ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ had afforded them. The largest venue this time around was the Hammersmith Odeon, with a four-night sell-out in the middle of the tour and a fifth appearance there at the end of the itinerary.

In addition to filming the video for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ at Elstree Studios, the band also conducted rehearsals there, significantly reorganizing their set list. Gone was the ‘Procession’ intro, and the medley was given a minor reshuffle in order to introduce segments of music previously unheard. Perhaps most startling was the promotion of ‘Now I’m Here’ from concert opener to first encore performance: while the song was a natural to serve as an introduction to a Queen concert, it received greater prominence in the encore, becoming a storming rendition on any given night.

An article with
Record Mirror
indicated that the tour was hastily arranged, with Freddie telling the magazine, “It’s all been such a rush. We only had two days to rehearse before the tour.” With such a dearth of time, the tour got off to a rocky start: “He’s slightly piqued because shortage of time has made it possible for only three numbers from the new album to be included in the show and one of them (‘The Prophets Song’) is ‘but a mere skeleton of what it should be.’ In answer to reassurances that it sounded very good, he snaps: ‘Yes of course it does, but it should be better. It’s not all there. This tour has been thrown together, my dears,’ he says finally. ‘Thrown together’ ... The perfectionist Mr. Mercury may be far from satisfied yet, but if Queen’s show was ‘thrown together’, it was done so marvellously well. Visually it was stunning, largely because it was the best-lit concert I’ve ever seen ... Musically, the show more than matches its trappings. Freddie’s voice is in amazing good shape, Brian’s playing is just heavenly and the rhythm department is everything one would expect of it – and more.”

Most intriguingly, each concert started with a taped intro of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, constructed by Kenny Everett. In a panic, Freddie had contacted his DJ friend the night before the tour started, asking for assistance in creating a worthwhile overture; the result started off with Kenny intoning exaltedly, “Ladies and gentlemen ...
A Night At The Opera
”, followed by a snippet of ‘Ogre Battle’ and leading into the opera section of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, by the conclusion of which the band would enter stage left and finish the song, excising the final verse, instead jumping directly into ‘Ogre Battle’. From the new album, which wouldn’t be released until 21 November, only ‘Sweet Lady’ and ‘The Prophets Song’ would be performed in full; the ending of the latter was arranged to feature a tape recording of the outro sound effects, and would speed up several keys, effectively leading into ‘Stone Cold Crazy’. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ now book-ended the medley; all the other songs from the album, except for ‘Seaside Rendezvous’ and ‘Good Company’, would be introduced into the set on subsequent tours.

The tour started in Liverpool (originally, the 15 November date was the starting point, but another show was added the day before to accomodate demand) with Oxford-based band Mr Big as support, and reception was unsurprisingly warm. This was Queen’s first UK tour in nearly a year, and the audience wanted to show just how much they supported the band. Freddie had taken to wearing a silk kimono (a souvenir from Japan) during the encore, and one night, as he put it, “I did the impromptu strip. I took the belt off and thought, ‘I’ll dangle the sash.’ I dropped it. Then I thought, ‘Can I get it back?’ Of course I couldn’t. Then I spotted this girl obviously after my kimono. I thought, ‘No way, dearie.’ I flung it to safety off stage.”

In Southampton in the last week of November, the band received news that ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ had reached No. 1, and spirits remained high throughout the remainder of the tour. After a show in Newcastle on 11 December, the band were stopped by police and escorted to the station to be searched for drugs. The lead vocalist of Mr Big later explained that the strongest drug on the bus consumed that night was a bottle or two of Southern Comfort; some suspicious-looking pills were later discovered to be aspirin.

After the tour’s conclusion in Aberdeen and Glasgow, the band performed a special Christmas Eve concert at Hammersmith Odeon that was broadcast live on Radio One and BBC2’s
The Old Grey Whistle Test
, and repeated several times thereafter. Similar to the Rainbow show from last year, Brian especially was frustrated with the show, as reported in
Sounds
: “Both Fred and Brian felt the show was fantastic while they were doing it but were horrified when they saw a videotape immediately afterwards. ‘It’s not up to you anymore. It’s up to the cameras, the lighting people.
You can’t help getting Mycroft images (those coloured lines that dominated the screen half the time) when the cameras got that close to me. I knew that was going to happen. It’s also very hard to decide what audience to cater for. The people in front of you have paid money to see you but at the same time you’re doing a prestigious concert and you have to try to make sure you come across on TV.’ Both Fred and Brian felt they failed in that respect. But then, the show did come in the middle of business meetings delayed by their recent tour and preparations for four months in America, the Far East and Australia. They had two days to ‘perfect the repertoire: what do you choose and what do you leave out? Also we were used to pacing ourselves for an hour and a half. I wouldn’t want to do live TV again. Film is much better because you have control over it.’”

Regardless of the band’s criticisms, the tour was well-received in the press. Phil Sutcliffe in
Sounds
wrote of the earlier Hammersmith shows, “[They] exuded the same exhilarating mixture of heavy, grandiose, beautiful and sheer extravagant silliness encapsulated in their superb No. 1 [‘Bohemian Rhapsody’]. And to spend an awful lot of time smiling with sheer pleasure at a rock show can be no bad thing. The inch-perfection of every movement, calculated for effect and co-ordinated to the lights is one entertaining feature, ‘artistic’ in the showbiz sense and at the same time amusing you with the absurdity of taking so much trouble over ephemera.”

1976

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR

27 JANUARY TO 13 MARCH 1976

Musicians:
John Deacon
(bass guitar, triangle on ‘Killer Queen’)
, Brian May
(guitar, vocals, banjo on ‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown’)
, Freddie Mercury
(vocals, piano, tambourine)
, Roger Taylor
(drums, vocals)

Repertoire:
‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
(taped intro)
, ‘Ogre Battle’, ‘Sweet Lady’, ‘White Queen (As It Began)’, ‘Flick Of The Wrist’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ / ‘Killer Queen’ / ‘The March Of The Black Queen’ / ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
(reprise)
/ ‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown’, ‘Son And Daughter’, ‘The Prophets Song’, ‘Stone Cold Crazy’, ‘Doing All Right’, ‘Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon’, ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’, ‘Liar’, ‘In The Lap Of The Gods... Revisited’, ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Big Spender’, ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘God Save The Queen’, ‘Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll’, ‘See What A Fool I’ve Been’, ‘Hangman’, ‘Shake, Rattle & Roll’, ‘Stupid Cupid’, ‘Be Bop A Lula’, ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’

Itinerary:

January 27: Palace Theater, Waterbury, Connecticut

January 29/30: Music Hall, Boston, Massachusetts

January 31-February 2: Tower Theater, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

February 5-8: Beacon Theater, New York, New York

February 11/12: Masonic Temple, Detroit, Michigan

February 13: Riverfront Coliseum, Cincinnati, Ohio

February 14: Public Hall, Cleveland, Ohio

February 15: Sports Arena, Toledo, Ohio

February 18: Civic Center, Saginaw, Michigan

February 19: Veterans Memorial Auditorium, Columbus, Ohio

February 20: Syrian Mosque, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

February 22/23: Auditorium Theater, Chicago, Illinois

February 26: Keil Auditorium, St Louis, Missouri

February 27: Convention Center, Indianapolis, Indiana

February 28: Dane County Coliseum, Madison, Wisconsin

February 29: Coliseum, Fort Wayne, Indiana

March 1: Auditorium, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

March 3: St Paul’s Auditorium, Minneapolis, Minnesota

March 7: Berkeley Community, Berkeley, California

March 9-12: Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Los Angeles, California (
afternoon and evening shows on the 9th
)

March 13: Sports Arena, San Diego, California

After Queen’s triumphant jaunt across the UK, they took three weeks off before flying to New York on 20 January 1976 to commence rehearsals for their upcoming US tour. Support acts were both Elektra artists, and varied depending on the legs of the tour: The Cate Brothers, a southern soul duo, discovered by Levon Helm, who had just released their eponymous debut album, and Bob Seger And The Silver Bullet Band; both were far removed from the regal rock of Queen. The set list remained similar to that presented on the UK leg, with only ‘Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon’ shoehorned awkwardly between ‘Doing All Right’ and ‘Keep Yourself Alive’. The audience’s reception to the
song throughout the tour was averagely lukewarm, which affected the band’s confidence in it; it would be out of the set by the end of the year. As the tour progressed, the band would drop ‘Lazing’ and replace it with either ‘Hangman’ or ‘Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll’ – or, in some cases, both.

New to the Queen entourage for this tour was Gerry Stickells, who had previously been a roadie-cum-tour manager for Jimi Hendrix and was engaged in the absence of Jack Nelson. The band’s third tour of the US (and second headlining tour) began in Connecticut at the end of January 1976, almost coming to a premature end in New York when three over-zealous female fans fought viciously for Freddie’s scarf, oblivious to the fact that it was still round his neck.

The tour wound its way through all the major hotspots of Queen popularity. The band even sold out the Beacon Theater in New York, resulting in a four-night residency, though the original plan was for only three nights. It was only because of intense ticket demands that a fourth night was hastily added. There were also five shows at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Los Angeles prior to the tour wrapping up in San Diego.

While the audiences were all rabid with their appreciation, most reviews were lukewarm or cautiously complimentary. “On the Music Hall stage Thursday night, the members of Queen proved themselves worthy of their hype only up to a point,” opined
The Boston Globe
. “What they lose outside the technical cocoon of the recording studio, they only partially make up for with dynamic, crowd-pleasing theatrics.”
The New York Times
was also damning with faint praise: “The music is sharply and tensely constructed, switching abruptly from mood to mood, blending styles into a febrile collage ... If one really liked the results – and the sold-out house Thursday was demonstrative in its enthusiasm – one might talk of an extension of Beatles complexity by post-Who basics. Except that for this observer, the end result is too often calculated and precious. Mr. Mercury is a good singer, and he has improved his stage presence, but he is still self-consciously posturing. And for all the skill and invention elsewhere, the music sounds hollow at the core.”

However, California fully accepted the band, with reviews that were positively glowing. “For those who keep a social history of rock, there was a concert/ceremony of special interest and importance Tuesday night at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium,” the
Los Angeles Times
purred. “A major new force in rock was officially crowned. The band’s name, quite appropriately, was Queen. It’s a group with the power, ambition and, crucially, the swagger to be a superstar attraction ... Though Queen’s debut last year [at the same venue] was well received, the band’s performance and material (thanks to songs from its new, finely-honed
A Night At The Opera
album) was more consistent and impressive this time. Indeed, the evening’s chief disappointment was the group’s not using more songs from its new album ... Queen needs greater sociological identification with its audience to be a maximum force in rock, but it has enough exciting, appealing attributes – musical and visual – to be a far more attractive subject of rock stardom (as measured by the ability to fill 18,000–20,000-seat halls) than most bands that have it to that level in recent years.”

It was this tour that convinced Brian that they were finally making it in North America. “It’s finally really happening for us over there,” he said to
Record Collector
later that year. “We really reached towards our peak with [
A Night At The Opera
] and it was great to see it break into the US charts. It’s always hard to get accepted over there – especially on the West Coast. But we were having sell outs everywhere. There’s a different kind of response between British and American audiences. Here the fans are more reserved until they have reached a point where they can explode. In the States they are ready to explode at the beginning. They will give you anything you want ... once you gain their favour.”