Listen To The Mad (Wardour-058)
Miyagi-ken Sports Center, Sendai, Japan – April 2nd, 1976
Disc 1 (59:42): Bohemian Rhapsody (taped intro), Ogre Battle, Sweet Lady, White Queen, Flick Of The Wrist, Bohemian Rhapsody, Killer Queen, March Of The Black Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody (reprise), Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Brighton Rock, Son And Daughter, member introduction, The Prophet’s Son, Stone Cold Crazy, Father To Son
Disc 2 (42:35): Doing All Right, Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon, Keep Yourself Alive, Liar, In The Lap Of The Gods…Revisited, Now I’m Here, Big Spender/Jailhouse Rock/Stupid Cupid/Be Bop A Lula, God Save The Queen
Queen’s show in Sendai is the penultimate performance on their Night At The Opera tour of Japan and their first in this city. Previous releases of this tape include District Public Performance on Happyweed and The Prophecy on the CDR label Trial. Listen To The Mad is the first silver release in a while and comes from a first generation of the common tape source. Wardour corrected the pitch on this release and also applied noise reduction to reduce the hiss. It is a distant and somewhat thin sounding but very clear recording with the entire show. There are small cuts in “Brighton Rock” and “Now I’m Here” but is otherwise complete.
“Thank you and good evening everybody. It’s really nice to be in Sendai for the first time” Freddie says after “Ogre Battle” and the band are trying to hard to impress a new audience who are as enthusiastic as Osaka. “Flick Of The Wrist” sounds particularly heavy and Freddie has fun trilling the “r’s” in “trouble.” After “Stone Cold Crazy” Freddie says, “this is a song from an album called Queen II.” The previous night in Tokyo they introduced “Father To Son” into the set list after being absent for two years. These performances are unique for including the piano introduction from the studio album that was normally dropped.
Roger Taylor plays a very energetic drum solo in “Keep Yourself Alive,” something that would be expanded upon in later tours. The house is brought down with one of the wildest versions of “Liar” available. The crowd shout “liar” and “all day long!” along with Freddie and clap for the entire ten minutes of the piece. This is the kind of audience participation Freddie was always looking for and I’d imagine the look on his face is priceless (if such photos or videos from the show exist). Brian May introduces the final song of the set “In The Lap Of The Gods…Revisited” and a full three minutes of audience clapping is on the tape before the come onstage for the encores “Now I’m Here” and the “Jailhouse Rock” oldies medley. Listen To The Mad is a very good effort by Wardour of a great Japanese show and is worth having.
