Action This Night (Gypsy Eye GE104/105)
Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, Germany – May 1st, 1982
Disc 1 (48:52): Flash’s theme, The Hero, Tie Your Mother Down, Action This Day, Play The Game, Staying Power, Somebody To Love, Love Of My Life, Save Me, Get Down Make Love, instrumental inferno: guitar solo
Disc 2 (44:59): Under Pressure, Fat Bottomed Girls, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Death On Two Legs (intro) / Bohemian Rhapsody, Now I’m Here, Dragon Attack / Now I’m Here (reprise), Another One Bites The Dust, Sheer Heart Attack, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen
Action This Night documents the Dortmund show on the European Hot Space tour in 1982. This occurs about a month into the tour and, since the show previous to this on April 29th was cancelled, gave the band and extra day of rest.
The recording on this release is a very good audience recording. It is slightly distant from the stage, most evident in the vocals, and there is slight distortion in the upper frequencies. There is also a small cut 4:18 in Brian May’s guitar solo, but is otherwise complete.
On the Hot Space tour, Queen played around often with the set list and dropped the medley for the only time. The choice of material from their new album, which was controversial upon release, also changed as if the band were not sure which songs to promote live.
The show begins with the Flash Gordon medley followed by “Tie Your Mother Down” which was introduced as the opening song the previous week in Leiden. The first new song, the catchy “Action This Day” follows.
During “Play The Game” the audience grow slightly restless as servicemen began a scuffle in front of the stage. While Freddie is playing is vocal call-and-response game with the crowd he stops and shouts: “Hey, stop it! Stop this. Cool down. No fighting here! You’ve come here to listen to some music right? So listen to the music, no fighting! Ok, now where were we? We were singing, ok?!”
“Staying Power” is the second new song played and sounds simply fantastic in this recording. This is one of the best of the new songs and the one most easily translated for the stage. The audience respond with loud whistles.
After the instrumental inferno they play “Under Pressure,” the third and final new song which is enthusiastically received (even though it’s strictly speaking not a Hot Space song). Afterwards Freddie continues scatting and Roger joins in on the drums.
“Fat Bottomed Girls” is played “to change the atmosphere” a bit. The piano introduction of “Death On Two Legs” serves as an introduction to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The final song of the set is “Now I’m Here.” The first encore set is “Another One Bites The Dust,” with loud singing by the audience, and “Sheer Heart Attack” with the second set having “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions.”
Action This Night is the only silver pressing of the May Day Dortmund show from this tour. It’s a very good recording of a show that is strange since there isn’t much material from the LP they were promoting on the tour. The performance is outstanding and is a good title worth having.
