Here's a YouTube comment (bear with me) that I noticed on an upload of Fairy Feller from Rainbow. The Blackpool show in question has no fully documented setlist, though queenlive.ca mentions that Fairy Feller was played, so it'd seem that that fact is already fairly certain.
From poster hkek56, 8 months ago:
"Fairy Feller's was played live afaik 3 times, all during Queen II tour. I was lucky to see one show where it was played. It was a Friday night in Blackpool, 1st March 1974. The place was Winter Gardens. The tour opening show. I'm a bit revealing my age here. I remember it was an enjoyment and also a big surprise to hear. I remember especially the vocal harmonies being amazing- One could see they had rehearsed a lot this one! I can say what i can remember it sounded much like on this cd (the Rainbow concert), but not so balanced. But the tempo and the body of the song was alike. As well as the piano sound. If my memory does not do tricks to me, Freddie played a smaller upright piano (not the big concert Grand Steinway one) ...
... In Blackpool Freddie, Roger and Brian's vocal harmonies were in a amazingly correct pitch - amazingly because the melody is quite challenging. And the song proceeded like a clockwork! So precicely!
What is a big question mark to me why they didnt play this more often, taken account the fact they sure had
1) modified this in purpose to make it possible to perform live
2) surely practised this a lot and put a lot of effort and work?"
They make a good point at the end. Whether to believe the recollections is tricky - they provide a lot of coherent detail and all their factual statements of date, venue etc. are accurate. However, perhaps it's too much detail for a 42-year-old memory of one song.
An interesting addition to the discourse on the song's live performance, anyway, and one worth assessing for validity.
As I've mentioned previously, an old Queen trading friend of mine, Marc Tretman, told me in the late 80's that he had seen a Queen show in LA, c. 1975 where there were a guy in the audience who kept screaming for 'Fairy Feller's' and to appease him they launched into a short impromptu version. I have no reason to doubt his recollection, as it was still not that far removed from when it happened and he was a very serious Queen fan, who had hung out with the band backstage in Japan (in 1982). Maybe a tape of that show will show up one day.
>pics or it didn't happen!
That's funny you say that, because I have a whole bunch of pics that he sent me. Some of them have been posted on Queen boards on Facebook.
>Are you kidding?
>Tens of thousands of people (not counting groupies) hung out with famous bands, and you think every one of them asked for photos?
This is true as well, though in this case the photos do exist.