Flash In Space (Breakdown 75-A/B)
Montreal Forum, Montreal, QC, Canada – July 21st, 1982
Disc 1 (44:52): Into Flash’s Theme (taped), Rock It / We Will Rock You, Action This Day, Play The Game, Staying Power, Now I’m Here, Dragon Attack / Now I’m Here (reprise), Save Me, Calling All Girls, Back Chat
Disc 2 (45:36): Get Down Make Love, instrumental inferno, Under Pressure, Fat Bottomed Girls, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Bohemian Rhapsody, Tie Your Mother Down, Body Language, Another One Bites The Dust, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, God Save The Queen
Queen began their North American Hot Space tour in Montreal on July 21st, 1982. They tried very hard to promote the new album by playing many new songs and configuring the setlist to be has hard rocking as possible by dropping the acoustic sing-along “Love Of My Life.” Two audience recordings exist for Montreal and Breakdown edit them together for a complete show. The main source is very good to almost excellent. The alternate source is used for thirty seconds in “Under Pressure” from :43 to 1:14, in “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” from 1:14 to 2:22, and for cheering after that song and the first thirty seconds of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
For this tour, after the “Flash’s Theme” taped introduction they drop “The Hero” and start with “Rock It (Prime Jive)” from The Game instead. Brian May begins in the wrong key and after singing the opening line Freddie shouts off mic “wrong key!” May figures out where to be and the song proceeds and segues into the fast “We Will Rock You.”
“Hello Montreal. It’s really nice to see you back so soon” Freddie greet the audience, referring to their two night filming in Montreal the previous November before proceeding with “Action This Day.” After the familiar “Play The Game” Freddie compliments the “polite little audience” and tell them they are going to “try a lot of new things” and invites them “to come up and boogie onstage.” Queen follow with “Staying Power,” another of the six new songs played that night.
After “Save Me,” the only real tender song in the set, Freddie speak about the next song making it’s premier performance and jokes that it’s a “piece of shit.” Taylor’s “Calling All Girls” was just released as a single and like the other Hot Space songs sounds much heavier live than in the studio and is segued with “Back Chat.”
Like in Europe, only the first verse and middle section of “Get Down Make Love” is played before it’s segued with Brian May’s guitar solo.
“Body Language” is played in the first encore set. It was a modest hit in North America and it is received well. This arrangement is more concise than that used in Europe, dropping the first verse and the extended ending. Overall this is a great Hot Space concert and worth having. The edit between the two tape sources is very well handled. Flash In Space is very cheaply packaged with the artwork printed on one side and paper labels on the CDRs.
