Special Review #22 – #Live at the Rainbow ’74’ – Queen

Queen’s ‘Live at the Rainbow’ is a very different experience to any other Queen live release, as you’ll be stuck with somewhat of a greatest hits collection if you listen to the likes of ‘Live at Wembley’ or ‘Live at the Bowl’ and similar famed ‘80s concert films/albums. This one, however, captures Queen not only in their infancy, but also at a time when they had to their dig their black finger nails right into their studio albums to make up the numbers in terms of setlists. If you’re a fan of Queen’s earlier work, from ‘Queen’ to ‘Sheer Heart Attack’, you’ll love the quantity of lesser-known album tracks that the band plays here. You’ll also love the pre-commercial-indulgence rawness, and the earlier camp of Freddie Mercury, as opposed to the later, “I’m so out of the closet that I’m going to grow a moustache” Freddie Mercury, a little more ambiguity is present on this album.

The concert kicks off with the ‘Precession’ introduction from ‘Queen II’, but rather than leading into ‘Father to Son’, as it does on the album, it instead explodes before crumbling into the palm-muted foundation of ‘Now I’m Here’. You see, ‘Father to Son’ is old news, here’s one of the hip new singles from our new album. I quite like that, not that they don’t play ‘Father to Son’ later on, but it’s kind of a half-troll moment. Speaking of trolls, ‘Ogre Battle’ follows, but not before Freddie states “the nasty queenies are back”, as he professes to the London crowd that he has missed them. I’m not sure if times have changed a lot, but considering Queen were already climbing up the charts at this point, it’s strange to hear a mainstream audience cheer for songs called ‘Ogre Battle’ and to an extent ‘The March of the Black Queen’, but I guess it’s still the kind of thing general fans of bands might pop for these days. Who cares?

I’d like to mention that ‘Ogre Battle’ sounds incredible here, so visceral and triumphant. But while we’re also on the subject of Freddie Mercury’s “banter” with the audience, it’s just oh so funny. Freddie’s stage talk is so ragingly queenie, you’ll laugh both with him and at him. With snickering campiness like “do you like my claws? They were a gift from the devil himself” and “has everybody got their black finger nails?”, this is Freddie at his most…wow it’s quite difficult to describe actually. He’s wearing all the glam, but he’s still keeping people guessing, it’s pretty outrageous, I can only assume there were a lot of middle aged guys calling him all sorts. Now would be a good time for me to say how much I love artists like Freddie Mercury and David Bowie for creating a good deal of positivity for the queer and the androgynous, and Freddie’s role humorously comes into play in its early form here. I’d also like to say how funny it is when Brian May talks; he sounds so straight by comparison, like he’s just about to get glued into the new issue of ‘Good Looking Birds’ Magazine – but at the same time he doesn’t sound like someone who’s good at talking to young people.

I have watched the video of this concert, quite recently actually, but I can’t remember how outrageous the band are in appearance, so let’s be over and done with that aspect of their performance and head on over to ‘Father and Son’ and ‘White Queen’ from ‘Queen II’, both of which sound very impressive live, the former more intense than in its studio form, and the latter just about as sad, and with even more effort put into the instrumental section, dazzling with guitar and piano solos. Brian then remarks how they’ve narrowly escaped getting themselves a #1 single, and that they will now play the lesser played side, that being ‘Flick of the Wrist’, and it’s pretty damn cool to hear it played live. Strangely though, they then play a medley, one that includes about a minute and a half of ‘Killer Queen’ – so, it’s the song they just sadly stated they wished had got to #1, by far their biggest hit at this point, but they only decide to play a smidgen of the song, I’d have liked to have heard more of it, but if I complained I’d be complaining to a guy who’s been dead for twenty-five about a concert that was played over forty years ago, I’m afraid I can’t win this one.

That being said, the medley is pretty enjoyable, starting with ‘In the Lap of the Gods’, as Roger Taylor wails in the background with his frightening falsetto. The song then falls into the ‘tap tap tap tap’ introduction of ‘Killer Queen’, and the snippet we get of the song is still eventful enough to be somewhat pleasing; it’s no secret that it’s my favourite Queen, and well, that would be a strange thing to be secretive about anyway, but yeah I guess the guitar solo being in there is good enough, I emphasise “I guess”. The instrumental section suddenly turns to the solo section from ‘The March of the Black Queen’, which is one of the best moments of that song (and that IS a compliment, that song has many great moments), before Freddie and Roger sing a portion of its lyrics. The medley then somehow segues from the heavy-as-hell ‘Black Queen’ to the musical chortle that is ‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown’, but I’m not complaining, I like the song, this quickie instrumental version is pretty fun, and we get a short ukulele riff from Brian, so even better.

The audience wants ‘Liar’, but John Deacon and friends give them ‘Son and Daughter’, with Freddie inoffensively telling everybody to “watch out”, in his “I’m a posh old woman” style. I tell you, for somebody who lived in Tanzania until he was a teenager, Freddie was damn good at sounding prissily English. Funny little thing about ‘Son and Daughter’, Freddie doesn’t say the word “shit” like he does on the album, which is pretty weird considering most attendees are surely already aware of the swearing on the record, but somehow a live situation is where he decides not to curse. There’s an even naughtier word in ‘March of the Black Queen’ but luckily as they didn’t do the whole song, we didn’t have to find out the hard way if Freddie would sing it while deciding against “shit”. The song comes in two parts, as they sandwiched a near-five minute guitar solo from Brian, most of which purposefully resembles ‘Brighton Rock’. This is/was (TIZWAZ, WHO REMEMBERS TIZWAZ?) a Queen live staple, and it sounds pretty good here – hopefully the audience wasn’t too bored.

We also get a drum solo from Roger Taylor, fitting in shortly and sweetly between two parts of ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, much less drawn out than the previous track and solo, plus it’s always nice to hear ‘Keep Yourself Alive’. Roger then introduces ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’, which…freaking…rules (the song, not Roger’s introduction). The song’s energy is mesmerising, perfectly encapsulating what made it so catchy in the first place. The announcement of ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ gets a pop from the crowd, and the song’s overdrive sounds a lot buffer live than it does on record.

The much-anticipated ‘Liar’ is then played, and it’s…fine? Not sure what all that hype was about, it’s a great song but it’s only ‘Liar’ – those people must’ve shat themselves when ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was released, if they hadn’t all died in the 1975 plague outbreak. I probably should’ve mentioned this earlier, but I am solely reviewing the standard release of this live album, which unfortunately means I don’t get to hear ‘Great King Rat’ or ‘The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke’ – both are great songs, and I’m currently crying.

Fittingly, we end the main portion of the show with heavyweight arena anthem ‘In the Lap of the Gods…Revisited’, a beautiful, lighters-in-the-air way to end things, of course before the band would end up releasing ‘We Are the Champions’. But you ain’t seen nothing yet, because we get a typical Queen encore of covers, well, and ‘Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll’ (lead vox by Freddie, rather than Roger), I guess to fit in with the ‘rock and roll’ emphasis a bit. ‘Big Spender’ is out first, and it’s amazing – you don’t need me to tell you how good Freddie was at simply big raunchy. The show finally ends with a pretty hardcore cover of ‘Jailhouse Rock’ – it’s a damn good cover, very mid-‘70s heavy, but still very traditionally old school. Freddie sounds almost upset with the audience when their sing-a-long vocals aren’t that loud. Our reminder that God still needs to save the queen then bellows out the speakers as the show wraps up, and everybody goes home or something similar.

Man, what a good time. I’m so happy that this concert got an actual CD release, 1973/74 Queen is a very underappreciated thing indeed, and I guess you can see why, seeing as how they’d become a singles pop band, but it’s not even as though this is a blueprint to what they’d become, this is simply a different Queen, and what some might consider to be a superior Queen. The show is loud, shameless and yes, majestic, and that’s the way I like it. They would never rock quite like they did here, and it proves that while the fifty-or-so hit singles that came after would generate a nifty legacy for Queen, it was an incredible boost, not a necessity.

In November 1974, Queen played at London’s Rainbow Theatre, gifting it its required pot of gold.

Favourite songs – ‘Ogre Battle’ – ‘White Queen (As It Began)’ – ‘Flick of the Wrist’ – ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’ – ‘Big Spender’ – ‘Jailhouse Rock’.
Honourable mention – ‘In the Lap of the Gods…Revisited’.

Rating – A