Queen - Live At The Hammersmith Odeon (December 24th, 1975) [2009 Czech TV Re-Broadcast] [HD 50FPS]

Happy Holidays Everyone! - 7

[2009 Czech ČT2 TV Re-Broadcast] ['Rock Masters' Version]
[NOT COMPLETE FOOTAGE, Now I'm Here intro & Christmas References are cut, and obviously Seven Seas Of Rhye and See What A Fool I've Been weren't recorded]

Description from Queenlive.ca :

City: London, England
Venue: Hammersmith Odeon
Date: December 24th, 1975

With Queen's popularity soaring in the UK, this one-off concert was broadcast live on BBC2's "Old Grey Whistle Test", the one and only time they'd play a full show live on TV. It is definitely the most bootlegged Queen concert, with countless radio and TV broadcasts worldwide keeping the bootleggers busy for decades.

Intro - 00:00
Now I'm Here [CUT] - 01:24
Ogre Battle - 05:16
White Queen - 10:20
Bohemian Rhapsody (verses) - 15:47
Killer Queen - 18:18
The March Of The Black Queen - 20:24
Bohemian Rhapsody (reprise) - 21:55
Bring Back That Leroy Brown - 22:53
Brighton Rock - 24:18
Guitar Solo - 26:36
Son And Daughter (Reprise) - 33:16
Keep Yourself Alive - 35:08
Liar - 39:25
In The Lap Of The Gods...Revisited - 48:07
Big Spender - 52:13
Jailhouse Rock Medley - 53:38

[Special Thanks To Bob Harley for re-sharing the source]
bobharley

The band had to cut down the length of their set for TV. Instead of playing Bohemian Rhapsody twice, they open with Now I'm Here to maximize the number of songs they're able to play. They knew the song worked as an opening number, as they had used it on the Sheer Heart Attack tour.

There are moments when the band sound nervous, as they're playing to their largest audience to date, including tens of thousands of people watching on TV. But it's still a fantastic performance and the recordings are a important document of Queen at a key point in their career. Brian has a superb night, turning in great renditions of White Queen and Brighton Rock particularly. He plays a bit of Three Blind Mice during his solo spot, something which he'd often do during this period.

During Roger's drum intro to Liar, Freddie says, "Sock it to 'em Rog." It is a superb version of the song overall, although near the end, Roger misses his big flam to cue everyone into the coda. They recover well, although Freddie, clearly startled to some extent by Roger's mistake, sings "Everything you do is sin" for the first and second lines, instead of starting with "They never ever let you win" as usual.

This video is the best document of Freddie's strip act during Big Spender. The kimono, worth about $500, was given to him by a Japanese fan earlier in the year. All known videos are missing Seven Seas Of Rhye, See What A Fool I've Been, and God Save The Queen. It has been long said that the BBC filming crew were packing up their equipment during the encore.

After the first encore of Big Spender and the Jailhouse Rock medley, the TV and radio broadcast end and the band return for a second encore. Brian May announces, "This is where we start, I think. We're on our own now, OK?" He is referring to the fact that the film crew have packed up their gear and left by this point in the evening. Freddie then introduces Seven Seas Of Rhye as "a number we forgot to do in the set," the one and only time their first British hit would be used as an encore.

Brian May would later recall the show. "Freddie and I, though me particularly, had dreadful flu and could hardly walk, let alone play – so it wasn't one of our greatest performances. But it was still all very exciting. It was the adrenaline that kept us going." However, in 2015 he said it was actually Roger who was feeling sick during the show, and Roger said so on multiple occasions in more recent years - "I remember feeling like absolute death, but the power of adrenaline is amazing as you start to sweat and work a bit, and you kind of forget about it then." Roger also mentioned how he was feeling anxious about losing the momentum they had built up throughtout the tour, as there was a week between the last gig and this one.

Brian and Freddie's parents met for the first time at this show. It turns out they had lived close to one another for over sixteen years, yet somehow had never actually encountered one another.

As revealed by the original live video broadcast on the Old Grey Whistle Test, most of the speeches between songs mentioning the fact that it was Christmas were later edited out of most audio and video rebroadcasts of the show. After Ogre Battle, Freddie says: "Right now Queen would like to drink a special Christmas toast to everybody here, all the viewers. So cheers!" Before Liar, he says, "And now a special Christmas edition of a little number called Liar." Roger, before he jumps into Big Spender, says, "Alright, Merry Christmas. Thanks for a fab year. We're gonna do some rock and roll." There is one exception, however - Freddie saying "Thank you, Merry Christmas everybody" at the end of In The Lap Of The Gods...Revisited is fully audible on the video rebroadcasts.