Please pardon my lame question, I am a first generation Queen fan in high school, I don't know much. I am wondering which live CD is their best? Please help me out, it would be greatly appreciated!
Nearly everything official is great if you just think of that is is queen that plays. But if you compare to bootlegs too, you can take away "live Magic" and "we will rock you".
Live at wembley, fire at the bowl, and livekillers are worth to buy.
for bootinfo, search on such pages.....
Hi,
Queen have release 6 commonly available live CD's:
Live Killers: Great selection of songs and a good indoors atmosphere. The band is great, but Freddie sounded better in other periods. The overal sound is ok, but not great and unfortunately they composed the songs from different concerts of that tour.
We will rock you: Great concert from the hot space era. Everyone in top shape and Freddie is awsome. The band was full of energy, but the crowd is a bit lame. I which that Freddie's voice was mixed a little less up front, but still very enjoyable.
On fire at the bowl: Great concert from the hot space era. Everyone in top shape and Freddie is awsome. The band was full of energy. I think this is their best live album, they had a real rock show.
Live Magic: A bit of a live greatest hits album. Edited versions of songs, but the band sounds good. Not bad, but a bit of a let down.
Live at Wembley: Great concert of laterday Queen with almost all hits present. Great crowd... I think Freddie's voice, Brian's guitar and Roger's kitt sounded better in other concerts. Still a great show.
Return of the champions: Good concert with Paul Rodgers filling in for Freddie. I realy enjoy the show and I think the song selection is good, though some rare songs would be welcome. Though no one can realy replace Freddie, Paul did a good job.
I'd rank them in this order:
1. On fire at the bowl
2. Live at Wembley
3. We will rock you
4. Live Killers
5. Return of the champions
6. Live Magic
I have some semi-bootlegs which I rank just below Wembley:
Tokio '85
Houston '77
Earls Court '77
Hammersmith Odeon '75
Osaka '85
Queen should release more of their great concerts.
Queen On Fire – Live At The Bowl is the best official CD – quality wise and performance wise. But the setlist doesn't appeal to everyone, because there's a lot of Hot Space stuff and some of the great earlier songs are missing (The classic medley, R 'n' R medley, KYA, DSMN...). But in fact the performance is absolutely awesome, they could have played only Britney Spears songs and it would be worth listening ;-)
Live Killers has a great setlist, the performance is very good (but at some points overdubbed or at least mixed together from different sources) and very powerful, typical for that era. The mixing of the different venues is done very professionally, I didn't recognize at first.
But there's one bootled from the Live Killers era that beats it by far: Hammersmith Odeon 26.12.1979. Freddie's performance is top notch, there are some surprises (Silent Night) and also an awesome rendition of Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Save Me, both not yet ready for the Live Killers album. The sound quality is excellent, too, so it's my all time favourite Queen concert!
The We Will Rock You CD is not bad, but not really exciting either. I like the setlist, the performance is very good also, but it lacks something. Don't know really, what it is.
Wembley is a great concert with an enthusiastic audience. Personally I like the 70's songs better, but it still is a great CD. But if you can get hold of the Budapest gig from the same year: That is an even better performance!
There are some 70's bootlegs I can recommend:
1. Live at Hammersmith Odeon 24.12.1975. Famous gig, very interesting because of the "old" setlist, but including BoRhap already. Great performance, perfect sound, and available on video also!
2. Live at the Summit, Houston 11.12.1977. Great performance, very nice setlist – a transition between the "classic", pre-Champions setlist and the Live Killers era – and excellent sound quality with the only disadvantage of much too less audience noise. That's a real pity.
3. Live in Chicago 1980. Great gig, excellent sound, nice setlist.
wembleywembleywembley........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................is a must ok.
I would say Wembley. All I have is Wembley, Live Killers, Live At The Bowl and ROTC. I didn't bother with Live Magic because Wembley is better. But yeah, Wembley.
But the Live Aid performance was probably better, but there is only 20 minutes of Queen there :(