Live At The Rainbow

<marquee><font color = green>Brenski wrote:

how about earls court as the main dvd feature with hammy75 and rainbow 74 as the "extara features"? - now thatt woudl be a dvd and a half!!!

do you want it with Brian, Roger and John's autograph, my dear?

he he he i hope they release at least one of them.

The theatrical version lasts about 20 mins. It is mono.

"I Just Wanna testify" that I saw the "Live At The Rainbow" as the "b" movie to John Travolta's "Saturday Night Fever" c1978/79!

<font color="whitesmoke">bambam</> wrote:

I suggest that you thank the QZoner who made the site. Sir GH, where are you?

Wow, am I ever behind in QZ. This is weeks old.

No prob... glad you guys enjoyed the analysis. Can't wait for more 79 bootlegs so I can keep updating.

I noticed from the first listening/watching that Live at Rainbow was heavily overdubbed.

You don't need to have a diploma to figure that out.

First of all, there are definitely more than 3 voices happening during the choirs. Then there is the comparison thing. If you compare this concert to the other ones from Sheer Heart Attack tour, you can hear they were different.

For instance, they newer sang "Just a new man!" thing on Now I'm Here as a choir....exept for this Rainbow show. And it even sound like 6 or more different voices. On many choirs you can hear Freddie singing multiple parts. It's easy to hear his vocal timbre, which is doing different harmony parts. It's all sound too full and polished for being 100% live. Anyone, who has seen/heard bootlegs, can feel the difference.

Funnilly:

There seems to be two versions? The one without too many overdubs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3PE9aPNvKs&feature=related
On this one, there still are a few. Listen to the beginning. Freddies lead voice is different to the delayed sound. So he overdubbed the lead-voice but the delayed voice comes from the live-situation! Also, the choirs are only 3 voices here.


But as for here, see for yourself. The choirs are WAY too FAT to be live!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l654yWwLFK4&feature=related

It's no secret that the Rainbow video is dripping with fix-ups and edits.  But what you've pointed out is probably the most blatant example of it, as the band themselves released the more raw version on the Greatest Video Hits DVD.  So good work putting them both in one place.

Now that the vocal overdubs have been removed between 3:23 and 3:30, the guitar is heard much more clearly.  Listen to how different the guitar tone is compared to the rest of the song.  Maybe that's an overdub too?  One bar was cut out leading into the vocal, so maybe something went wrong...?

I gues that the bit you are refering to, ie. the end of solo part before the last chorus, is explainable. Part of the band (mainly Freddie and Roger) missed one bar live, and went too early to the chorus. Brian didn't, and that's why he had to overdub the guitar fot that part in studio afterwards, to make it sound "together".

It's is great that they seem to have the master tapes somewhere. How else, could they have been remixing this thing GVH I?

I just hope, they would release it WITHOUT the stupid choir-overdubs and preferably with Freddies original voice aswell. On this GVHI version the lead vocal is still post-recorded in studio.

I agree, Ploughman. And it's basically the studio versions with some live snipets. It sounds way too phony even for an untrained ear or someone who isn't acknowledge with Queen. It may sound silly, but that tells something about Queen's music: it was as much a product of advances in technology as of their talent. Besides Freddie, none of the guys were really great singers - and one can easily notice that the lush vocal harmonies are the part of their music which suffers the most live. There's the wonderful dream and the illusion sold by the music industry - and this is not a criticism: it took both talent and advances in technology to make it all happen - and the reality on stage. On stage Freddie's gentle tune, full and prominent falsettos and Queen's big vocal harmonies were all but absent and that's why when I first listened to them live I thought that there was "too much lacking". 

It was understandable - the more you rely on sound engineering to produce a sound you're unable to produce naturally by yourself, the sharper the feeling of something lacking in the live performances. 

On the other hand, the live versions were never intended to be a copy of the studio albums and aimed at something different - and they eventually managed to circumvent this sense of "emptiness" by speeding up some rockers, by turning the whole stage and the lightning into part of the songs, and so on. 

Just a little digression, but I think the Rainbow footage is quite symbolic in this regard.

AlexRocks wrote:

Did you all know that "Live At The Rainbow" was shown in some theaters?! Did you know that it was shown before a certain other film? Do you know what film that that was? It was Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains The Same". Supposedly this was only done in select theaters.

Yes Alex is right - the BFI have this edited down film and on the notes it says it was shown to support the Zep film

 



 



 



Yara wrote:



 



it's basically the studio versions with some live snipets.     



 

Not really - that would be a near impossible task in 1974 and none of the versions sound remotely like the album versions. All the drums and bass will be live and untouched, and the majority of vocals and guitar will be original aswell. There may well be touch ups here and there, but nowhere near as many as some people like to think - based mostly on the heavy use of vocal delays which double up a lot of the vocals and the out of sync footage from 2 nights worth of footage.

I stand corrected, then. Basically the live version with some edits here and there. :) 

And thanks for the info and the points raised. I'll pay more attention to it next time I watch the footage.

Yara wrote:















Besides Freddie, none of the guys were really great singers - and one can easily notice that the lush vocal harmonies are the part of their music which suffers the most live.

Certainly, in the later years.  But in the early years their vocal harmonies were very often bang on.  Roger Taylor had one hell of a voice in his prime.

It was understandable - the more you rely on sound engineering to produce a sound you're unable to produce naturally by yourself, the sharper the feeling of something lacking in the live performances.

Very, very true.  But not being able to reproduce it certainly doesn't have to be a bad thing!

On the other hand, the live versions were never intended to be a copy of the studio albums and aimed at something different - and they eventually managed to circumvent this sense of "emptiness" by speeding up some rockers, by turning the whole stage and the lightning into part of the songs, and so on.

Just a little digression, but I think the Rainbow footage is quite symbolic in this regard.

Excellent point.

Queen in the seventies were truly a brilliant live band that had it all. To me the recently emerged recordings have proven that once again and I hope many more will follow:-)
As Bob says, early on their vocals were bang on, they were tight but with room for creativity and their presentation was always top notch as were their setlists(an aspect that rarely gets a mention).

I sincerely hope Queen Productions will do this era justice, I think it is possible.

Ok, this was off-topic:-)

live at the rainbow was NOT  overdubbed at all...it was just probably the best queen performance caught on video. Freddie's voice sounds amazing and everyone is at the top of their game.
[/QUOTE]They should remaster it even more and release it as an official dvd. They shouldn't release live at the hammersmith '75.[/QUOTE]