Queen Rock Montreal(2009)

 

 

So the story goes that Queen rolled into Montreal in November  24 & 25-1981 to film two nights at the Forum to capitalize on the huge success of one of the all time best Rock Albums (my humble opinion) 1980’s The Game.

1982 this was released and it did its deal of a video run than basically disappeared for a real long time until 2007 when it was released on both DVD and CD. As an added bonus it had a theatrical release as well. Guess in 2007 Brian May & Roger Taylor bought back the rights as back in 81 Queen was unhappy how the crowd was mixed low.

This was a complete no brainer purchase for me on CD. As I had mentioned earlier Queen was plugging their Game album so once I seen the track listing  and Dragon Attack was included it was time to dig into the wallet. Plus it’s live….

Speaking of tracks….or should I say Classics!

01. Intro
02. We Will Rock You (fast)
03. Let Me Entertain You
04. Play The Game
05. Somebody To Love
06. Killer Queen
07. I’m In Love With My Car
08. Get Down Make Love
09. Save Me
10. Now I’m Here
11. Dragon Attack
12. Now I’m Here (reprise)
13. Love Of My Life
14. Under Pressure
15. Keep Yourself Alive
16. Drum & Timpani Solo
17. Guitar Solo
18. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
19. Jailhouse Rock
20. Bohemian Rhapsody
21. Tie Your Mother Down
22. Another One Bites The Dust
23. Sheer Heart Attack
24. We Will Rock You
25. We Are The Champions
26. God Save The Queen

I could review all 26 tracks…but man this would be long so I will select some and well thanks for reading !

Freddie Mercury/John Deacon/Roger Taylor & Brian May deliver a blistering set of Tune-age opening with the fast version of We Will Rock You. This version is seriously sick! Freddie right off the bat telling Montreal during the first chorus to “Get Up/Get Up” basically taking control of the situation and letting everyone know who da boss is!

Let Me Entertain You keeps the show rocking forward as it features some real snappy kick ass drumming from Roger Taylor and some real slick riffing from Brian May.

And just like that Queen shifts gears and goes into from The Game album the song Play The Game. Love how Fred plays the keys and I also love how at this time Queen just went with the four dudes doing everything and not hiring added keyboards and guitars. Keeping it in-house is way better in my opinion and It’s funny as Queen slams you outside your noggin with two Kick Ass openers yet even with a little quieter pieces like Play The Game it kicks your ass in a different way. Have never put my finger on it but then again this is Queen and the musical bar is set high!

Freddie man you have to love his humour as he tells the Montreal Crowd that it’s ok “To stand up and shake your ass” at that moment Brian May plays a quick 4 note sample of Under Pressure which the audience laps up but Freddie retorts with a “Fuck Off!” Fred’s stage! Fred’s rules! (see video posted below)

Love the mashup of Killer Queen and the Roger Taylor sung  I’m In Love With My Car.  In Killer Queen when Freddie sings the line “Fastidous and precise” that Bass line by Deacon is just pure brilliance! I’m In Love With My Car, Taylor has that raspy lead vocal and the real star in this tune is Freddie’s piano playing and the tight musical tempo changes in this tune. These kind of things I call GOLD!

Now I’m Here blasts off with a ton of classic May riffing  right into one of my all time fav Queen Tunes and thats the John Deacon Bass driven Dragon Attack. The groove put forward by Deacon and Taylor to let Fred and Brian do what they do is incredible. Deacon for me is the fella who wrote many of my favourite Queen tunes(one day I will post about this) but yeah you can’t go wrong with cool  lyrics like…

Take me to the room where the red’s all red
Take me out of my head-‘s what I said
Take me to the room where the green’s all green
And from what I’ve seen it’s hot, it’s mean..

Love that Deacon opening bass line of Under Pressure which the crowd that night eat’s up. Crazy that for these guys its just one classic after another.

Freddie straps on the acoustic and the band launches into Crazy Little Thing Called Love.  Deacon drives this song with his happening bass work and May pulls off a cool rockabilly solo like only May can.

Jailhouse Rock the Elvis song is the cover of choice this night. I read that Jailhouse Rock was performed as an encore number just before Sheer Heart Attack but was  added after  Crazy Little Thing Called Love. The reason for this was that Freddie wanted to to piss off the director, who had told the band that they had to wear the same clothes on both nights! Who was the poor sap who had to tell Fred that? Haha…

Ummm what can I write about Bohemian Rhapsody that hasn’t been written about? Exactly this is Mega Queen at its finest and how the hell did they think of this stuff back in the early half of the 1970’s? 

The show concludes with the epic ending of the show classics of the slow version of We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions. 

I’m posting below a video of Queen exiting the stage as it has classic Freddie humour as he tells the Montreal crowd “Lets All  Get Fucked”

This album is a must…..Shame really after the 1982 Hot Space Tour Queen never returned to Montreal or North America for that matter until after Freddie had passed. This though is a great show!

A must own!