1978.05.13 London - second generation

Queen
London, England
Empire Pool
May 13, 1978


Here is a delightful surprise - a second generation copy of the last show of the News Of The World tour.

The cassette was obtained in the early 1990s. And as is to be expected when it's a recording that now has five different copies, all of which have little to no transparency on where they came from, and all of which have been clearly watermarked and altered purposely by the tapers, there is a sordid tale about an assembly line of people beginning with someone in Europe who demanded it not to be spread. But with the help of a rogue tape trader way back when and a recent fortuitous encounter at a music store, about 25 years later this version is finally able to come out.

As per the previous copies, a few issues remain, as the show still isn't complete, nor does it have the same sound quality throughout. But this tale is a far less complicated one than the previous merge I posted a couple months back:

http://www.queenzone.com/forums/1508550/1978-05-13-london-40th-anniversary-edition.aspx

The guitar solo is missing from this copy, so I've used the one from the previous merge. It is a combination of three different copies of the show, as they were all incomplete, but cut in different places. I did seamless crossfades in and out of it, and the flow of the show isn't interrupted. It is still cut part way through for a tape flip (the Three Blind Mice bit only exists on the worst-sounding of the five copies of the tape), and then the sound greatly improves by the Frere Jacques bit and becomes stereo. The newspaper review of the show is not wrong in pointing out how the venue's sound was very boomy, which this stereo portion certainly clarifies.

The last ten tracks still have a bit of distortion, just like the 104 minute mono copy. But here they sound much nicer overall. It is now clear that the first 79 minutes of tape were reduced to mono on purpose, and considering the difference in sound for the last 39 minutes, one naturally wonders if the former portion really is as low generation as purported.

There are 15 seconds of tape before Bohemian Rhapsody that needed to be filled in with another copy - undoubtedly yet another watermark.

And now on four different versions, there are 10 seconds of The Millionaire Waltz with digital noise (likely from a bad 1990s CDR), which are painstakingly fixed here. It's interesting that this digital issue appears on numerous copies with different amounts of analog tape hiss on each.

Some of us may be aware of Mike Millard and his classic tapes of Zeppelin, Stones, and Yes shows. In the 1980s he sent out copies of his tapes to his "trusted" friends, but each copy had different watermarks so that if one was sold to bootleggers or leaked to tape traders (which is obviously inevitable) he would know exactly who betrayed his trust.

This Queen show isn't much different. All of these watermarks done by this group of territorial and paranoid superfans to track which degraded copy goes to whom are the fingerprints of a bunch of kids kicking and screaming because they don't want the other kids to play in the sandbox with them. But I guess this kind of behaviour isn't entirely abnormal if you're willing to spend a decade following a band around to 300 concerts all over the world.

So there are now five versions of this audience tape, all of which have differing quality and completeness issues. But it's a wonder that all this effort was undertaken in this case, since all of these Royal Family tapes are pretty average sounding. At least with Millard's tapes you were getting quality.

The first two songs are still missing, but 90% of what we hear here is certainly an upgrade of what has circulated before, making this worth a listen for sure. I doubt the master tape will ever show up, so this is probably the best we'll get.

This is an excellent Queen show, and the last ten tracks certainly are worth the price of admission alone.


* AUD > Master > 2nd Gen Cassette > CDR (?) > WAV (GoldWave speed correction) > FLAC level 8

** AUD > Cassette (x) > WAV (GoldWave speed correction) > FLAC level 8

*** AUD > Cassette (x) > WAV (GoldWave speed correction) > FLAC level 8

**** AUD > Cassette (x) > WAV (GoldWave speed correction) > FLAC level 8


More info here:

http://queenlive.ca/queen/78-05-13.htm


1) Somebody To Love *
2) White Queen *
3) Death On Two Legs *
4) Killer Queen *
5) Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy *
6) I'm In Love With My Car *
7) Get Down Make Love *
8) The Millionaire Waltz *
9) You're My Best Friend *
10) Spread Your Wings *
11) It's Late *
12) Now I'm Here *
13) Love Of My Life *
14) '39 *
15) My Melancholy Blues *
16) White Man *
17) The Prophet's Song *
18) guitar solo [cut] **/***/****
19) The Prophet's Song (reprise) *
20) Liar [cut] */****
21) Bohemian Rhapsody *
22) Keep Yourself Alive *
23) Tie Your Mother Down *
24) Sheer Heart Attack [cut] *
25) Jailhouse Rock *
26) We Will Rock You *
27) We Are The Champions *
28) God Save The Queen *


http://mega.nz/#!YQgCESzA!YBkB9AlYqyKRW20i-EvSVF8zfrnicuoGOoPNb3q70ec


Enjoy, keep it lossless, and don't bootleg this !

Can anyone figure out what happens before Liar? It sounds like Mercury asks the crew to make a change to the stage ...? He mentions a backdrop or a prop, and then Gerry Stickells.

Even in the improved quality, the reverberation of the hall makes much of what he says barely audible.

Awesome! Thanks for your hard work and dedication! :)

-Chin

Thank you!!

Awesome, Sir. Thank you very much :)

Thank you so very much. Really appreciated.

I think I hear Freddie mention something along the lines of "extending the stage". That's all I've managed to pick up.

-Chin

Thank you RW for your hard work on this and other shares

Thank you Bob for sharing and of course the love and attention you have put into making this share as good as possible.

Thank you!!!!!

P.S. Bigger thank you!

Great work Wizard! Thanks!

Thanks a lot for another upgrade!

The Real Wizard, re:

>All of these watermarks done by this group of territorial and paranoid superfans to track which degraded copy goes to whom are the fingerprints of a bunch of kids kicking and screaming because they don't want the other kids to play in the sandbox with them. But I guess this kind of behaviour isn't entirely abnormal if you're willing to spend a decade following a band around to 300 concerts all over the world.

Wonderfully benevolent of you, thank you.

But....... Your point above being that, because it's been taped, it should be given away? Why would you begrudge someone that HAS followed a band around and made huge effort / sacrifice to do so, keeping a tape that they shared amongst a close set of friends who have also, very probably, done the same thing?

Paranoid? Territorial? Abnormal?

You have an AMAZINGLY ridiculous sense of entitlement.

[QUOTE] [b]dudeofqueen wrote:[/b]

But....... Your point above being that, because it's been taped, it should be given away? Why would you begrudge someone that HAS followed a band around and made huge effort / sacrifice to do so, keeping a tape that they shared amongst a close set of friends who have also, very probably, done the same thing?

Paranoid? Territorial? Abnormal?

You have an AMAZINGLY ridiculous sense of entitlement[/QUOTE]

Fair enough that you see it that way, but naturally I respectfully disagree. These people went out of their way to watermark a single recording at least five times when they sent it to "friends", decreasing the quality so that their "friends" could have a worse version of a tape. This is a foundation of "trust" for friendships? Clearly they wouldn't even play their masters for their friends.

These are the same people who would then go to each other's homes, steal their tapes, and then destroy them because they weren't "good enough" quality. Classic shows will never be heard because of petty and childish behaviour. If you want to side with them over people who want to spread what music is left for others to enjoy, that is, of course, your prerogative. But before you do that - just assume that there is far more to this story than you know.

The prestige of having something nobody else has will lead to behaviour most people can't even fathom. Check out the "Freezer's Revenge" thread on TTD if you want to see 500 pages of what it looks like.

Obviously we should be grateful to anyone who taped shows, but there wasn't an ounce of generosity in their bones when it came to distributing shows like this one. If someone else didn't want their recordings to get out, then they shouldn't have sent them to anyone to begin with. This section of the forum is called "sharing the music", not "hoarding the music". If you want to sympathize with hoarders, you're welcome to do it - but this isn't the place for it.

Thanks for reading the entire description, though. Most people glaze over that stuff.

Thank you very much!