Queen Album: “On Fire: Live At The Bowl”

In November of 2004, Queen released its fourth live album Queen On Fire Live at the Bowl.

This live recording and its off-shoot DVD was recorded and filmed at The Milton Keynes Bowl outside London, England on June 5, 1982.

Not officially released on video or CD, Queen On Fire Live At The Bowl marked the first time a recording of this concert has been LEGITIMATELY available to own as a 70 or 80 minute edit had been available on the bootleg recording circuit.

Audio producers Justin Shirley-Smith and Kris Fredriksson returned to the original 24 track analog tapes recorded by 80s Queen co-producer Mack and Mick McKenna with The Rolling Stones Mobile Truck and created brand new regular stereo (for this CD and one of the two DVD mixes)) and DTS 5.1 surround sound mixes (found on the DVD).

We kick off as the band hits the stage with the entrance music of Flash before the band dives into a spirited version of The Hero. Next is a killer We Will Rock You (fast version) complete with Brian May popping a guitar string and the music was left alone. Next is Action This Daywith drummer Roger Taylor and Freddie Mercury duetting on this rocker and John Deacon adding some bass which was muted on the studio recording and Brian playing his Red Special backup as his Red Special had to get a new string and Morgan Fisher did a great synthesizer solo substituting for the saxophone solo. Then Freddie does a nice piano intro which goes into an excellent Play the Game. Next is another Hot Space track Staying Power which is transformed into a rocker with Deaky and May playing guitars plus Roger bashing live drums and Freddie being on fire here. Next is arguably this live set's best track Somebody To Love which buries its studio counterpart by a longshot. Next is Now I'm Here which is excellent with a Freddie/audience vocal duel before segueing into Dragon Attack which rocks although Brian blew yet another string on his Red Special guitar and had to use his Red Special back up for the finale solo and the reprise to Now I'm Here. Next is a nice version of Love of My Life with Brian playing an impromptu teaser of Las Palabras De Amor before starting the track. Save Me is next and is done with more power than the studio counterpart. Deaky's Back Chat ends the first CD as the funk track is turned into a full-on rocker with Roger playing the drums like a man possessed, Brian's guitar dominating, John playing his Music Man Stingray bass and Freddie singing his heart out.

The second CD begins with Get Down Make Love which is a great short version which then segues from its middle section into Brian's Guitar Solo which is amazing despite the fact his guitar cord came undone (you can see this on DVD unedited) and Brian finishes with some help from Roger's drumming. Roger does an uncredited 30 second Drum Solo at the end of the guitar solo track as a lead in to Under Pressure which is an excellent version of the track. Next is Fat Bottomed Girls which rocks and Freddie's voice was electronically fixed on the part where he says LOCALITY which his voice cracked on the original Milton Keynes BBC airing. We then have a rocking Crazy Little Thing Called Love which is great. Then we have Freddie play a nice piano solo leading into possibly the best live version of Bohemian Rhapsody ever. We then rock out with the set closing Tie Your Mother Down which rocks. The first encore of Another One Bites the Dust is a great spirited version. Sheer Heart Attack follows and is more aggresive than either the News of the World version or the Live Killers version. We then have the second encore of the traditional We Will Rock You with audience participating and a stellar We Are the Champions. We then have the band say farewell as God Save the Queen plays over the PA.

Despite the fact this album didn't chart upon its late 2004 release here in the States, this live album is a FANTASTIC snapshot of Queen reigning their natural habitat, the concert stage and is one of my favorite live albums EVER!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Queen was one of the all time best live bands in the history of music! They had the lights and the show. BUT they had the talent (unlike say KISS for example)

Queen is now releasing concerts on DVD and CD. One every other year or so. They had several HUGE GREAT shows over the course of their career. This is one of them (the others would include Rainbow 74, Hammersmith Odeon 75, Earls Court 77 & Montreal 79)

Now, alot of the other reviewers who are not big queen fans poo poo the Hot Space album and say this is bad because of it. The truth though is that while alot of the songs on Hot Space were Disco/funk/dance songs, the live versions ROCK! Action This Day, Staying Power & Back Chat may not be real great on the album, but here they are fantastic and energetic!

This also houses what most queen fans consider the definitive live version of Somebody To Love.

PLUS: You get alot of songs not available commercially on a live album until now: Play The Game, Dragon Attack, Somebody To Love, Fat Bottomed Girls, & Save Me.

PLUS: One of the best openings of any of their shows: The Hero and We Will Rock You (Speed). Quite energetic!

PLUS: The Guitar solo is one of the better ones, save for some guitar problems during it. Nice drum solo intro to Under Pressure as well!

PLUS: Alot of hits are played: in addition to what i have already mentioned, Bohemian Rhapsody, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Another One Bites the Dust, We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions & Tie Your Mother Down

They did not do much overdubbing like they have done in the past. . I have had this show for years on a bootleg CD. Only a misstep in a vocal by freddie was fixed (in Fat Bottomed Girls) This is a far cry from all the cut and paste jobs on Live Killers and the overdubbing on Live at Wembley. Hell some songs on Live Killers are from multiple shows. SOME SONGS!!! They were better than that live, I expect even queen to miss a note or forget a lyric so god knows why they had to fool with it.

This is an AWESOME live album and is perfect for any rock fan.

Compre este Cd y para que suena bien y la voz de mercury impecable yo recomiendo a los fanáticos de Queen que compren este disco doble es de coelcción

Queen is one of the best live bands ever to exist and this cd is a welcomed addition to the existing Queen live repertoire ("Live Killers" and "Live at Wembley '86" being their other major live cd releases). Not only does this collection have great live versions of Queen hits that aren't on their other live releases ("Play The Game", "Somebody To Love", "Save Me", "Fat Bottomed Girls") but you also get songs from their poorly received album "Hot Space" which here in their live versions are far superior to the original album versions ("Action This Day", "Staying Power", and "Back Chat"). Of course you also get great live versions of the "standard" hits that they would always play in concert ("Under Pressure", "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Tie Your Mother Down", "Another One Bites The Dust", "We Will Rock You", "We Are The Champions"). Comparing it to the other two collections, I would rate it ahead of "Live Killers" but slightly behind "Live At Wembley" because Wembley included other great hits not on this collection like "One Vision", "A Kind Of Magic", "Who Wants To Live Forever", "Radio Ga Ga", "I Want To Break Free", and "Hammer To Fall". But all three live cds are great so get them all if you can!

This is excellent. This is real offical Queen stuff by Roger and Brian. To me that says it all. It has the best version of Play the Game I have ever seen. Somebody to Love is great too. The quality here is unbelievable. It would be awfully hard to be disappointed with this one in my opinion. This just may be Freddie Mercury's finest hour, well one of many. Long live Queen!!!!