You know for me Bassist/Songwriter John Deacon(Queen) was an important part of the Queen sound! This fella had enormous talent and for all intent purposes I will focus on the one album of Deacons contributions that I do know about and that’s Queens brilliant 1980 release The Game.
The Game in my world to this day is still a game changer of epic proportions! Hell I discovered this album all on my own as a 13-year-old(back in 1980) as I had no older brother/sister to pooch music from.
The Game going back to that time was a year before I discovered the drunken shambolic genius antics of Van Halen’s Women & Childern First album!
Deacon on The Game composed two tracks all on his own. One being of course Another One Bites The Dust which of course features that driving Bass Line that we all know. Amazing that the single alone sold 7 Million copies! Just the tune itself…Man just back up a Dumptruck filled with money to Deacons front yard….
Come to think of it this has to be one of the very first Bass driven tunes I had ever heard as a young fella….
Another One Bites The Dust was the song of course that made me purchase The Game. It also helped that I loved the look of the cover. Queen all decked out in their rock gear with a real cool looking slick silver cover with a black n white shot of the band in the middle. Simple yet very effective…
Deacon though wasn’t finished yet with this contributions to the Game album. Right after Another Bites The Dust finishes up here comes another John only written track and thats Need Your Loving. From the first time I heard it back in 1980 to now which is almost 37 years later Need Your loving is a quick little Two Minutes and Fifty seconds of pure hard pop bliss!
Brian May lays down a brilliant opening riff as Roger Taylor/Freddie Mercury and Deacon propel this tune in which I think is one of the best Queen tracks ever! Seriously yeah …
Need Your Loving is a pop ditty to perfection. Quick little ass kicker of a track. Nothing to prolonged don’t bore us get to the chorus and this song is a classic in my Noggin.
Amazing that once Fred died John Deacon just walked away from it never to return and for that which is pretty impressive as Queen still rolls on today ….
Deacon had a real knack for writing some brilliant tracks and his two contributions to The Game album are two of what I consider all time great’s in the Queen catalogue…
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!
I have a buddy named Chico whose sister had a copy of Queens News Of The World on LP around say give or take 1979 so this was my first introduction to the Queen machine but at that time it was all KISS,AC/DC ,New England and Cheap Trick nuthin else really mattered back than but in 1980 Queen unleashed The Game and lil Deker expanded his listening bands to 5!
What grabbed my attention other than the fact Another One Bites The Dust was everywhere was the cool looking cover. Full props to the person who decided to go with the silver look as colour of choice with a cool looking black and white pic of the band on the cover! Queen looked badass and it’s kinda funny how two short years later when Queen put out Hot Space(???) they didn’t look so bad ass anymore! But nevertheless lets play a game and talk about The Game!
PLAY THE GAME-Starts with what sounds like a UFO landing and the song begins with Freddie Mercury at the keys and for me at the time (13) my musically horizons are expanding! Every album I owned up to that point had ripping opening numbers(KISS had songs like Detroit Rock City,AC-DC had Hells Bells,you get the picture?!) to get em out of the gate but here’s Queen schooling me that you don’t have to come blasting out of the gate at a million hundred miles per hour but Queen was showing their diversity in the grooves and man this is sumthin new to my ears and guess what I’m ok with it! Also big in this song next to Freddie is Brian Mays guitar action the dude pulls off a real good solo.
DRAGON ATTACK – Could easily be one of my favourite Queen songs ever( the other is Need Your Loving)John Deacon funks out some bass with Good ol Roger Taylor into the Dragons Den and man this is Queen grooving off in a jam with Fred chirping telling me that the “Reds all red baby that’s what I said “and Brian May carries the super cool tune along with some cool percussion from Taylor and snappy bass from Deacon. This is Queen at their best for me anyways!
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST-Give a shout out to the bass player John Deacon for writing this tune and it’s his bass that carries this tune. I mean flashback to the early 80s this song was everywhere and I still remember years later it being used in a chocolate bar commercial that sent people freaking! Relax people it’s just John Deacon cashing his chips in man! He wrote the fuckin thing ! I still hear Mercury in my head saying “Another One Bites The Dust Hey Hey” this song as well if you were old enough in the early 80s to go to bars the bass in this song would just be jacked probably to the point of deafness! I guess that’s where the blow and booze would come in!
NEED YOUR LOVING TONIGHT-So Johnny Deacon sez if you think I’m just a one hit wonder in the songwriting department check out Need Your Loving Tonight! He writes pop ditties and man the rest of the guys with the drums,vocals,bass acoustic and electric guitars just add to this song and it’s my fav on The Game and I’m not just saying that because of the other two megabits on here! This song should have been huge and well for me it’s Queen once again at their best! Like Freddie says ‘Hit Me’ Bravo John Deacon!
CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE-Freddie plays guitar, acoustic guitar that is on this track and man this song was huge ,huge just like Another One Bites The Dust! Maybe bigger?? Deacon drives the bass and May yanks a cool 1950ish sounding solo and yep it does sound like Elvis could have done it! And hey we all know the saying ‘Ready Freddy’….great first side now flip your vinyl and let’s dive nose first into….
ROCK IT (PRIME JIVE)- Roger Taylor says well everyone is writing tracks so I better contribute to get some royalties!! Rock It starts off slow with May and Freddie talking about our love for rock n roll as it’s all in our souls and once the drums kick in Taylor takes over the lead vocals and I remember as a kid thinking wow all 4 members contribute tracks just like KISS except Queen is a little more complex. What I mean is that you weren’t gonna find any ” please to meet ya in the Ladies Room” that’s ok there’s a place for that but not at the Queens Palace!
DONT TRY SUICIDE-Fred says don’t do it cuz nobody gives a damn! Cool handclaps and neat rhythm and Queen has rhythm man. Check out the middle part of the tune when Fred pounds the keys the Queen is a Rocket Ship headed into frontiers for others to follow and I will explain it at the conclusion of this review. Plus as a 13-year-old was the first time I heard the word “Tits” used on a record!! I’m not quoting the line Freddie says,you go listen to it!
SAIL AWAY SWEET SISTER- May does the honour on this song as he sings it as well! It’s a big time ballad in the Queen sense. Queen must have puked when all those flipping hair metal bands in the 80s were doing ballads. I mean you know my deal on ballads but Queen had class doing them. Warrant did Heaven think about this will ya!
COMING SOON- Ol Rog throws down song number by himself on side 2 and Queen picks up the pace with this mid tempo little rocker! May carries this tune as well. This song is one that nobody ever speaks of,buts it’s good,no shit Sherlock!
SAVE ME- The album ends huge as a huge epic Queen tune. The piano and Fred carry this tune. Man could Mercury lay it down vocally! Shit man this guy is one of the best as when you hear him you know it’s him! Fantastic finish to a classic rock record!
IN CONCLUSION- For this being really the 4th band I ever got into Queen showed me how you could travel down another musical landscape and still come out it with the feeling of Rawk without pussing out! Deacon,Mercury,Taylor and May also proved that you do a record all with single cowrites and still exist creatively and man you never hear the Queen guys Bitchin about royalties and if they did they kept in-house!
The sonics on this album even today are superb! Queen was ahead of their time by a mountain slide of other acts putting out records during the 1980s. Kudos to producer Mack and to Queen for pushing the sonic envelope! Don’t believe me? Grab a pair of headphones man….
Also some artists of the 80s borrowed heavy from this record and 2 come to mind quickly.
1- Billy Squiers Emotions In Motion album is heavily influenced by The Game as well as Queens producer Mack fiddled with the dials as producer on Emotions in Motion!
2- The Cars,don’t laugh listen to The Game especially Taylor’s Rock It has Ric Ocasek all over it. Than again maybe the Cars had some influence on Queen…I doubt it I can’t see anyone influencing Queen other than Queen themselves!
I must also mention I’m not a huge Queen fan and would never pretend to be but for me The Game and there Queen Rocks Montreal are must haves…..check em out!
deKe's Vinyl Reviews & More... 