Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl

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Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl
Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl cover
Live album by Queen
Released October 25, 2004 (Europe)
November 9, 2004 (US)
Recorded June 5, 1982 in Milton Keynes
Genre Rock
Hard Rock
Length ~100:00 (DVD ~170:00)
Label Parlophone (Europe)
Hollywood Records (US)
Producer Brian May, Roger Taylor, Justin Shirley-Smith
Professional reviews
Queen chronology
Greatest Hits III
(1999)
Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl
(2004)
Return of the Champions
(2005)
Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl
Directed by Gavin Taylor
Produced by Jeff Brown
Malcolm Gerrie
Simon Lupton
Brian May
Roger Taylor
Rhys Thomas
Andrea Wonfor
Starring John Deacon
Brian May
Freddie Mercury
Roger Taylor
Morgan Fisher
Fred Mandel
Running time 170:00
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Queen on Fire - Live at the Bowl is a double compact disc live album by English band Queen released on October 25, 2004 in Europe and on November 9, 2004 in the US.

It was recorded live at the National Bowl, Milton Keynes, England, on June 5, 1982 during the Hot Space Tour. A DVD was also released with the concert and bonus material, such as band interviews and tour highlights.

In 2005, the album was also released as an LP, like every Queen album.

In the UK the CD made #20 and DVD #1 in the album and DVD chart respectively. In the US, neither the album nor the DVD charted.

Contents

[edit] Notes

During the show, guitarist Brian May had problems with his homemade Red Special guitar. During both the fast version of "We Will Rock You" and "Dragon Attack", a couple of guitar strings snapped and he had to switch over to his Birch Red Special backup for almost all of "Action This Day" and for the entire second half of "Dragon Attack" and all of "Now I'm Here (Reprise)".

Before "Love of My Life", May played a snippet of the intro to "Las Palabras de Amor" calling it "a little fiddle around".

During "Back Chat", Freddie Mercury flubbed one line, singing "'Cos you're walking in your sleep" instead of "'Cos you're talking in your sleep".

During May's guitar solo, the lead on his guitar became disconnected and the guitar solo stopped for 20 seconds (as seen on the DVD but the 20 seconds was reduced to 3 seconds on the album version of the performance). A roadie had to help him get his guitar working again.

Also, drummer Roger Taylor did an impromptu 30-second drum solo before "Under Pressure" whilst May got his guitar fixed. Taylor had stopped doing drum solos (he last performed one in November of 1981) so this was the only time he did a drum solo post-1981 with the original lineup of Queen.

On "Fat Bottomed Girls", Freddie Mercury's voice cracked during the lyric "in this locality" (which was noticed on the original BBC TV, Channel 4, MTV, and radio broadcasts of the Milton Keynes show) but the error was repaired for release on the CD and DVD.

Mercury performed without his trademark bottomless microphone stand for "The Hero" (on the Live in Japan bonus footage on DVD), "We Will Rock You (Fast)" and "Now I'm Here". Apparently this allowed Mercury to more freely scale and walk along the raised wings on either side of the stage. Although it it noticeable that he is using a cordless microphone which were becoming available around the time and appears to be relatively larger than a standard microphone.

During the song "Fat Bottomed Girls", Mercury sang "Oh but I still got my treasure, Still got my greatest pleasure" instead of "Oh but I still get my pleasure, Still got my greatest treasure" In addition, the line, "Hey big woman, you made a bad boy out of me," was improvised as, "Hey big woman, you made an asshole out of me."

The Hong Kong version of the CD release does not contain either "Get Down, Make Love" or "Fat Bottomed Girls".

[edit] Track listing

[edit] Disc 1

  1. Flash (May)
  2. The Hero (May)
  3. We Will Rock You (Fast) (May)
  4. Action This Day (Taylor)
  5. Play the Game (Mercury)
  6. Staying Power (Mercury)
  7. Somebody to Love (Mercury)
  8. Now I'm Here (May)
  9. Dragon Attack (May)
  10. Now I'm Here (Reprise) (May)
  11. Love of My Life (Mercury)
  12. Save Me (May)
  13. Back Chat (Deacon)

[edit] Disc 2

  1. Get Down, Make Love (Mercury)
  2. Guitar Solo (May)
  3. Under Pressure (Queen/Bowie)
  4. Fat Bottomed Girls (May)
  5. Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Mercury)
  6. Bohemian Rhapsody (Mercury)
  7. Tie Your Mother Down (May)
  8. Another One Bites the Dust (Deacon)
  9. Sheer Heart Attack (Taylor)
  10. We Will Rock You (May)
  11. We Are the Champions (Mercury)
  12. God Save the Queen (Trad. arr. May)

[edit] DVD bonus material

[edit] Personnel

  • Freddie Mercury – vocals, piano, acoustic guitar on "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"
  • Brian May – guitars, vocals, piano on "Save Me"
  • Roger Taylor – drums, percussion, vocals
  • John Deacon – bass guitar, rhythm guitar on "Staying Power", additional backing vocals on "Somebody to Love"
  • Morgan Fisher – keyboards
  • Justin Shirley-Smith – mix producer
  • Kris Fredriksson – pro tools hd
  • Mack – recording engineer
  • Mick McKenna – second recording engineer
  • Kevin Metcalfe – mastering
  • Richard Gray – artwork
  • Denis O'Regan – photography

[edit] Charts

[edit] Album

Chart positions Countries
20 UK (gold)
23 Austria (gold)
52 Switzerland
74 Netherlands
75 France
85 Japan

[edit] DVD

Chart positions Countries
1 Austria (gold); Belgium; Germany (4 weeks, 2x platinum); Italy; Japan (on international charts); Sweden; UK (2 weeks, 3x platinum)
2 New Zealand; Portugal (2x platinum)
4 Norway
5 France

[edit] External links