They played in Leiden, Rotterdam, and The Hague but they never played a concert in Amsterdam. Why is this? Of course, when I say Queen I mean with Freddie.
Because 1) Amsterdam sucks and 2) Up to a few years ago when the Heineken Music Hall was built they did not have a proper concert venue in Amsterdam.
'They always loved playing in Rotterdam Ahoy - in fact Brian mentioned several times when he came back in for the Back to the Light tour and for the Q+PR concerts that "it's good to be back at the good old Ahoy!".
The Phenomenon wrote: Because 1) Amsterdam sucks and 2) Up to a few years ago when the Heineken Music Hall was built they did not have a proper concert venue in Amsterdam.
'They always loved playing in Rotterdam Ahoy - in fact Brian mentioned several times when he came back in for the Back to the Light tour and for the Q+PR concerts that "it's good to be back at the good old Ahoy!".
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Ever been to Rotterdam? Amsterdam is heaven in comparison.
At that time Amsterdam didn't have any venues to hold big concerts. Nowadays they have the Ajax football statium "Amsterdam Arena" where a lot of the big concerts are held and which is infamous for it's terrible acoustics (well duh, it's a football stadium). And the Heineken Music Hall, for slightly smaller in scale acts.
But there wasn't a good venue to house big acts like Queen in Amsterdam in the 70s or 80s
Good answers. The reason why I asked this question was because Amsterdam is the capital and is bigger than the other Dutch cities they played in. It still is surprising that they didn't even play in a small theatre in Amsterdam yet they play in Leiden many times
@ Thomas Quinn: I go to Rotterdam regularly... and avoid Amsterdam whenever I can. No seriously, as concert venue Ahoy stands out from the crowd, although the HMH is pretty good and I've seen a lot of bands there (among which one of the last concerts of The Darkness for example - amazing!) . But nothing beats Queen in Ahoy!
Indeed, in the 70's and 80's there was no suitable arena or concert hall in Amsterdam. In those days we only had indoors Ahoy Rotterdam, IJsselhallen in Zwolle and the Groenordhallen and outdoors Feynoord stadion (only in the 80's as i remember Springsteen and others playing there) and de Galgenwaard stadion in Utrecht. Queen always played at the Ahoy but changed venue in the early eighties to the Groenoorhallen (bigger capacity then the ahoy in those days). The Groenoordhallen are gone by the way. I only saw Queen twice (84' & 86') in the Groenoordhallen, not the best acoustic concert hall but hey, it was Queen!!! I still like the Ahoy and the Heineken music hall in Amsterdam is the perfect concert hall acoustically IMO. I've seen a lot of concerts in the Amsterdam Arena but acoustically it sucks big time, and last year i went to see AC/DC there, and i have sworn that's the last time i ever gonna visit the damn place again, regardless of who's performing.
Exactly - I also hate these football stadiums. In fact, the only reason I will not be seeing Axl Rose live is because they are playing in f$%^kcing Gelredome, the worst acoustics ever. What a shame.
jamster1111 wrote: Good answers. The reason why I asked this question was because Amsterdam is the capital and is bigger than the other Dutch cities they played in. It still is surprising that they didn't even play in a small theatre in Amsterdam yet they play in Leiden many times
Queen in a small theatre? What did you have in mind, like 200 seats? Perhaps 300? Get real!
ThomasQuinn wrote: The Phenomenon wrote: Because 1) Amsterdam sucks and 2) Up to a few years ago when the Heineken Music Hall was built they did not have a proper concert venue in Amsterdam.
'They always loved playing in Rotterdam Ahoy - in fact Brian mentioned several times when he came back in for the Back to the Light tour and for the Q+PR concerts that "it's good to be back at the good old Ahoy!".
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Ever been to Rotterdam? Amsterdam is heaven in comparison.
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I prefer Rotterdam. Probably the realest city in the Netherlands. Raw. Dirty. Hard working people. Great architecture. Love it.
I've been to Amsterdam once,in the eighties.
Thought it was a lovely clean city.
I also saw Queen(the original four)in Leiden too.They also had Bow Wow Wow as support act.I remember the guitarist throwing a wobbly at the audience coz they were all booing them.
I live in Rotterdam, and I love it :-)
Ahoy is a great concert-area!
But I have to say, Paradiso - Amsterdam, is also awesome.... (bit small though....)
Pink Floyd performed in the Concertgebouw in 1969. Probably too small for Queen standards back then (referring to the 70s, that is).
It's worth checking out this concert btw. A great bootleg with excellent sound exists ;-)
There are thousands of cities Queen never played in. Amsterdam happens to be one of them. They didn't necessarily go to all the big cities... how many times did they play in Manila, Tehran, Cairo?
Technically, they never played in Los Angeles either, as The Forum is located in Inglewood (same state, same county, but technically not same city). Same for Nice, for instance. Bonn (also a capital back then), only once.