Having just listened to A DAY AT THE STADIUM which ruth.olivier generously just shared with us (thank you), it got me wondering how much Freddie would have agreed with such heavy editing of commercial releases such as Wembley?
In the bootleg "version" of WATC for example, where Freddie changes the tune for, "... ain't gonna lose..." I much prefer the way it was originally sung. To me, he actually sounds much better in the original and it proves MORE SO how gifted a singer he was, how he could change the tune so readily to suit how tired he was. I know this is nothing new to the fans on this board, we all know how special a singer he was, but it would be nice for the public to know this too. He wasn't consistently able to hit all the high notes as we know from all the bootlegs we've listened to. Do you think Freddie would have agreed to having the DVD release edited to make it sound like he did hit the higher notes?
I'm aware Live Killers and even the early Hammersmith gig was heavily edited, but how much a say did Freddie, or for that matter, the rest of the band have in how the final offering was heard?
I wasn't aware that hammersmith 75 was overdubbed. I know the Rainbow show was: is that what you mean?
Anyway, if Fred was happy with the manipulations of the Rainbow show and Livekillers, doubt he would object to Wembley.
What bugs me about 'Queen' - the brand - today is that it's become alomost a byword for a certain type of quality music. The GH packages make ideal Xmas presents, for example, because they appeal to a wide variety of people, not just fans.The DVDs are the same. I think Queen Productions (and the band) don't want to release anything that shows them in a 'bad light'. So I doubt we will see Earl's Court or Hyde park becasue there are mistakes in there. The only exception I can think of is Milton Keynes where the DVD shows Brian's guitar chord falling out.
I sometimes wonder just what some people consider "heavy editing".
I wasnt aware until recently that Wembley had been toyed with at all, and it annoys me that the band think they need to. Unless its some god awful mistake which ruins a song, Id rather hear the raw performance, because bootlegs more than establish that far more often than not the band were shit hot live, and didnt make that many mistakes!
So how "heavy" is heavy with Wembley - what has actually been done?
Are we talking a few fixes like with On Fire, or have large parts of songs been replaced?
Bad Seed wrote:
I think you seem to be forgeting that Freddie was alive and well when Wembley was first released.
I suppose... I'm forgetting that the VHS was already edited in 1990... although I can't be bothered getting my old video recorder out to see if the DVD was further edited?
PS... although he was "alive"... I wonder how "well" he would have been when it was first released?
... I did mean Rainbow btw! Was just back from night shift.
Zebonka12 wrote:
Actually I'm more interested in where the overdubs came from.
Were they always done in studio or did they come from different performances?
What amazes me is how some overdubs sound almost exactly like the sound in the performances they are supposed to "fix", it's hard to notice them.
In LK, you can easily notice how one song came from a venue/concert and other song from another one, as the overall sound changes a lot sometimes (audience noise, accoustic issues, reverbs, different gear used...). I think it's not easy to reproduce that "accoustic environment" in the studio to replace certain live performances - playing is never the same (unless it's a sequencer or a backing tape), voice is never the same, mic placement might be slightly different, gear settings too... and i don't mean replacing a whole guitar solo for example (who can testify that the notes are/aren't the same except if they have some other kind of recording? A few people can, 99% of the people that buy that release will never notice or bother), but other significant parts - the rythm guitars, drums, vocals, etc.. Sometimes a part of a song that was perfect can be used to replace another similar part that wasn't, but in a live concert I'm not sure if it happens that often in a way that these parts can "match" mostly if some studio recording is used. Replacing bits with bits of a previous or a later night of the same venue might work, but using studio recordings seems interesting to me, how they manage to get the same "accoustic mood". A single note or a riff or a bar is easier to fix, but a bigger part or the whole guitar track for example... not really.
I just listened to OV of this boot and it is amazing. Even not knowing every note and breath of the released version, it really sounds very different to me (better although not "technically perfect"). Sometimes it's just because of the mixing that is different, but sometimes you can really notice the different parts.
Marcos Napier wrote:
Who wants to live forever (they're talking from here!)? It doesn't appear in the bootleg and it was inserted between dust and break free.
That's not really an edit though of the concert... that's just some chat omitted from the bootleg, but not from DVD. An edit would be e.g I Want To Break Free... the last "God knows I want to..." were Freddie's voice cracked on "I". This is replaced on the DVD with a more perfect "I" in which his voice was fine lol. There are others, not always Freddie edits but instead instrumental.
These flaws in the voice are quite common, near the end of some songs.
Lots of wrong bass notes too - not really wrong, just different. Listen
to it with headphones and lots of new things will show up.
In this bootleg (a day at the stadium) posted here there isn't a WWTLF + chat, it goes right from dust to break free, the chat is probably from the other night.
WWTLF & CHAT is different from night before... similar point to make, but he says something like, "I'll tell you from my bowels we're not gonna split up..."
WWTLF is different... actually a nice version on the first night by Freddie... apart from Brian's solo during it.... sounds horrible for some reason!