1981.02.28 - Argentina, Buenos Aires, Estadio 'José Amalfitani' del Club Atlético Vélez Sársfield
Being FIRST MAJOR ROCK a very common and the most complete bootleg from this date, I thought it would be a very nice idea to improve it a bit. So I am offering updated versions of the following tracks:
CD 1
01. Overture */** 0:55
13. Dragon Attack **/* + Now I'm Here - reprise *** 5:00
CD 2
10. We Are The Champions **/* 3:13
* Source A:
Soundboard -> Radio Rivadavia stereo 1/4-inch reel master -> 'Gogo' Safigueroa 90-min cassette (with fades) -> TDK SA90 cassette -> MOTU 24 I/O -> WAV (stereo 94 kHz/24-bit)
Local entertainment journalist José María 'Gogo' Safigueroa's 53th birthday was on this day. He attended the concert and later received this cassette as a present. Unfortunately, the sound engineer who made the copy used a 90-minute cassette, so Now I'm Here - reprise and God Save The Queen were cut in order to fit the rest of the audio - also very long fades were applied to the end of Dragon Attack and We Are The Champions. The original reel master has been lost beyond recollection. Sadly, 'Gogo' died last year prior to the QUEEN+Paul Rodgers concert. This 2nd generation recording was provided by a kind collector.
** Source B:
FIRST MAJOR ROCK, Gypsy Eye 045/046.
Original silver CDs -> WAV (stereo 44.1 kHz/16-bit).
This bootleg (as most from this show) comes from a ?th generation copy from the above 'Gogo' cassette, made in the late 80's/early 90's - somewhere somehow the start of the Overture was trimmed a little bit further.
*** Source C:
Soundboard -> Mono 120-min cassette -> ? -> Rock & Pop FM 2001 special -> WAV (stereo 48 kHz/24-bit)
Some cassettes were made during the concert and handled to some media/PR people shortly afterwards - those were complete recordings copied onto 120-minute cassettes but in mono! In 2001, local FM Rock & Pop hosted a special show commemorating the 20th anniversary of the QUEEN concerts in Argentina. A fellow collector provided the radio station with some material that came from an unknown generation copy of one of these mono cassettes. Need Your Loving Tonight, Rock It, Save Me and Now I'm Here+Dragon Attack+Now I'm Here - reprise were broadcasted. I recorded the program using my PC.
I extracted the CDs using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) 0.99 pre-beta 4. Editing was performed in Adobe Audition 3.0 (compilation 7283.0). Despite the SA90 cassette not being in top form, I found it was better to use this source for the audio restoration in the fades, specially in We Are The Champions. Encoded in FLAC (stereo 44.1 kHz/16-bit) level 8 using FLAC FrontEnd 1.7.1 Eltree edition. You can replace the corresponding tracks on both CDs with these and they will play seamlessly. Hope you enjoy them!
It should be noted that this show was also broadcasted live by Radio Rivadavia, but I was not able to locate a FM version ...yet (I have invincible hope!) Also, a couple of local fans claim to have complete recordings in full stereo, but to this date I still have to hear a sample.
As a final note: Fat Bottomed Girls was NOT played at this concert, so the only missing songs are now Get Down, Make Live and God Save The Queen.
P.S: Special thanks to Mariano Sucatti.
Wilki Amieva