Budokan 1979 (no label)
Budokan, Tokyo, Japan – April 25, 1979
DVD: (Approx. 32 min) Intro, We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Killer Queen, Bicycle Race, I’m In Love With My Car, Teo Torriatte, Keep Yourself Alive, Don’t Stop Me Now, Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions
CD: (64:32) Version 1: Intro, We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Killer Queen, Bicycle Race, I’m In Love With My Car, Teo Torriatte, Keep Yourself Alive, Don’t Stop Me Now, Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions
Version 2: (With Japanese Intro) Intro, We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Killer Queen, Bicycle Race, I’m In Love With My Car, Teo Torriatte, Keep Yourself Alive, Don’t Stop Me Now, Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions
April 25, 1979 was Queen’s eighth show in Japan during the Jazz tour and was the source for a Japanese TV broadcast. This is the band’s sixth show in seven days and Freddie Mercury’s vocals suffer as a result as his voice sounds tired.
The concert was heavily edited down into two segments totaling just 32 minutes for the TV broadcast which also included further edits to the medley and “Bohemian Rhapsody”, being painfully cut after the guitar solo. There is also a puzzling edit during the guitar section at the end of “We Will Rock You” eliminating just a few seconds.
The video footage was previously pressed on DVD as We’ll Give You Crazy Performances (Apocalypse Sound AS-135), paired with footage from Paris, and on Wardour’s Pride And Joy, a 4CD/DVD Budokan themed set which featured the April 14th and 23rd shows on the CDs and the video from April 25th on the DVD. Like the previous two DVD releases, Budokan 1979 comes directly from the Japanese TV broadcast and is excellent quality.
Budokan 1979 contains a choice of two different audio sources for the DVD and both are represented on the CD as well. The two versions sound almost identical with the only difference being that Version 2 contains an extra 10 seconds of Japanese intro before the common source starts. Aside from that it is an excellent sounding professional video soundtrack and is also the first time a silver CD utilizes the professional audio soundtrack. The complete audience source has been released on CD by Wardour as Dreamer’s Ball.
The band sounds really good and tight aside from Freddie’s vocal struggles. He mainly avoids his upper register; the early part of the night isn’t too bad but gets noticeably worse in the songs from the later part of the set. “Keep Yourself Alive” and “Don’t Stop Me Now” suffer the most, however Freddie realizes his limits and doesn’t push too hard.
In comparison, the video quality is about even between Budokan 1979 and Wardour’s Pride And Joy but the audio quality on Budokan 1979 is a bit of an improvement being brighter and a little bit clearer. This is also nice to finally have the audio on a CD and is an excellent way to obtain both in one package. This comes in a DVD clamshell that houses both the DVD and CD with a nice collage of common photos on the cover.
