Play Brussels Rock You (Gypsy Eye GE-258/259)
Foret National, Brussels, Belgium – December 13th, 1980
Disc 1: Jailhouse Rock, We Will Rock You (fast), Let Me Entertain You, Play The Game, medley: Mustapha/Death On Two Legs/Killer Queen/I’m In Love With My Car/Get Down Make Love, Save Me, Now I’m Here, Dragon Attack, Now I’m Here (reprise), Fat Bottomed Girls
Disc 2: Love Of My Life, Keep Yourself Alive, instrumental inferno, Battle Theme, Flash Gordon theme, The Hero, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You (slow), We Are The Champions, Another One Bites The Dust, Sheer Heart Attack, Tie Your Mother Down, God Save The Queen
The Gypsy Eye label used to be quite prolific releasing many titles covering different artists. Their output in the past couple of years has been sporadic which is a shame since they are one of only three label issuing silver Queen titles. Plays Brussels Rock You is their latest and the first since their excellent version of the Milwaukee 1975 tape. There is a bit of a problem however. The date listed on the cover says this is the first Brussels show on December 12th but there are some issues around the Brussels 1980 tapes.
The extant source for the 12th is a poor to fair audience source missing “Dragon Attack”, “Now I’m Here (reprise)”, “Fat Bottomed Girls”, and “Tie Your Mother Down”. The tape for the second show on the 13th sometimes circulates as the 12th and that is the case here. The first night’s tape can be identified by the huge cut and Freddie shouting “See you tomorrow!” during “God Save The Queen”. Play Brussels Rock You is from the second show in Brussels on December 13th and is not the first show from the 12th.
The tape is a good to very good complete mono audience recording. The very beginning sounds muffled like the taper had the mic under his coat, but clear up two minutes into “We Will Rock You (fast)” and becomes enjoyable. There are minor imperfections like a tape crinkle in the guitar solo of “Dragon Attack” and at the end of “Fat Bottomed Girls” but nothing too distracting.
This show occurs several days both after the release of Flash Gordon and the assassination of John Lennon. They played Lennon’s “Imagine” on some of the dates during this tour although they didn’t play it here. The “We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions” diptych is played as the first encore rather than being the final one which was normal for this tour.
Some people claim that “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” is from another tape source but it doesn’t sound it. It is remarkable how vocal audiences became after the release of Live Killers. May introduces “Love Of My Life” as where they must sing and they oblige very loudly. “Keep Yourself Alive” includes the tympani solo and May’s long guitar solo which includes riffs that would be used for “Put Out The Fire”, and segues into “The Battle”. Overall this is a great concert and this release is definitely worth having.
