Return of the champions
| Return of the champions | ||||
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| Live album by Queen + Paul Rodgers | ||||
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Publication |
September 19, 2005 (CD); October 2005 (DVD) |
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| Label (s) | Parlophone / EMI ; Hollywood Records (USA) | |||
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Format (s) |
Double CD, triple LP or DVD |
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Title (number) |
27 |
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running time |
74:42 (CD 1), 52:43 (CD 2) |
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Accompanist:
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Return of the Champions is the fifth live album by the British rock group Queen , released in 2005, and the first album by Queen + Paul Rodgers . They include a live recording of a concert at Hallam FM Arena in Sheffield on May 9, 2005.
The album
In November 2004, Brian May , Roger Taylor and Paul Rodgers performed live together for the first time on the occasion of Queen's induction into the UK Music Hall of Fame . In December, Taylor and May announced that they would tour together for the first time in 19 years - with Rodgers as lead singer. Both sides stressed that this was not the official successor to the Queen singer Freddie Mercury , who died in 1991 . This was also reflected in the name "Queen + Paul Rodgers" chosen for the tour. Rodgers' blues- oriented style of singing is also fundamentally different from Mercury's vocal performance. Queen bassist John Deacon , who had been musically inactive since the late 1990s, did not take part in the new collaboration. The last tour of Queen with the original line-up took place in 1986.
Queen and Paul Rodgers gave their opening concert in South Africa on March 19, 2005 on the occasion of the new edition of the 46664 benefit concert initiated by Nelson Mandelas Foundation , which was supposed to contribute to the fight against AIDS . The six-person line-up includes Queens, who has been live keyboardist Spike Edney for decades , bassist Danny Miranda and, for the first time, an additional rhythm guitarist in Jamie Moses . The European tour, which was organized at relatively short notice, but was largely sold out, lasted from March 28th to May 14th, 2005 and included a total of 28 indoor concerts. In the course of the year several open-air performances followed in Europe as well as concerts in Aruba, in the USA and in Japan.
With a playing time of over two hours in some cases, the concert lasted longer than many previous Queen appearances. Smaller changes to the set list were made more frequently than usual . About half of the songs were also on the 1986 Magic Tour , Queen's last tour. There were also some older tracks (such as I'm in Love with My Car , '39 or Fat Bottomed Girls ) as well as titles that were only released after the Magic Tour (such as I Want It All and The Show Must Go On ). Say It's Not True , sung by Taylor, was presented at the first 46664 concert in 2003. In addition to the vast majority of Queen songs, a handful of (often changing) songs by Paul Rodgers' former bands Free and Bad Company were played (including All Right Now ). The concert opener Reaching Out was released in 1996 under the project name "Rock Therapy" as a benefit single for the benefit of the Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy Center; Brian May and Paul Rodgers had recorded the song together with other musicians. With the instrumental piece Last Horizon , atypical for Queen concerts, a title that appeared only on a solo album (May's Back to the Light ) also became part of the band's program. Taylor's drum solo Let There Be Drums , a cover version of the piece by Sandy Nelson , premiered a few days after the tour began.
A preprogrammed drum computer was used in These Are the Days of Our Lives and in the first part of Radio Ga Ga so that Roger Taylor could leave his drums and perform the lead vocals on the front of the stage. In Bohemian Rhapsody , the final piece before the encores, Freddie Mercury and Paul Rodgers shared the vocals, which for many was one of the emotional highlights of the concerts. A video recording showing Mercury on the piano during Queen's last appearance at Wembley Stadium (see also Live at Wembley Stadium ) was projected backstage. Rodgers' vocals began with the hard rock section, the final part both sang in a duet.
The concert in Sheffield on May 9, 2005 in front of more than 10,000 spectators was one of the last appearances by Queen and Paul Rodgers as part of their indoor tour through Europe. With one exception, Return of the Champions essentially includes the entire concert. Eminem's off-tape track Lose Yourself , which served as a concert intro, during which May's guitar was briefly heard, is not featured on the album or DVD . The only song from the live set that is missing from the published recording is Under Pressure , which was only on the set list for the third time that day and was announced by Brian May during the concert as follows: This is actually something that we probably won ' t put on the DVD so this is for you. This is like a bonus track. The concert recording was edited in a few other places before it was published.
The filming of the concert in Sheffield was directed by the director David Mallet , who was previously responsible for several music videos for Queen and the concert recording of the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concerts . The Return of the Champions DVD contains both stereo and 5.1 surround sound.
In some countries, a CD single with the titles Reaching Out / Tie Your Mother Down and Fat Bottomed Girls was released at the same time as the album or DVD .
Track list
| CD | number | song | Lead vocals | length | Author (s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Reaching out | Rodgers | 1:08 | Hill, Black |
| 2 | Tie your mother down | Rodgers | 4:30 | May | |
| 3 | I want to break free | Rodgers | 3:59 | Deacon | |
| 4th | Fat Bottomed Girls | Rodgers | 5:45 | May | |
| 5 | Wishing Well | Rodgers | 4:33 | Rodgers, Kirke, Yamauchi, Kossoff , Bundrick ( Free ) | |
| 6th | Another one bites the dust | Rodgers | 4:02 | Deacon | |
| 7th | Crazy Little Thing Called Love | Rodgers | 4:35 | Mercury | |
| 8th | Say It's Not True | Taylor | 4:15 | Taylor | |
| 9 | '39 | May | 4:38 | May | |
| 10 | Love of My Life | May | 5:11 | Mercury | |
| 11 | Hammer to fall | May / Rodgers | 6:45 | May | |
| 12 | Feel like makin 'love | Rodgers | 6:20 | Rodgers, Ralphs ( Bad Company ) | |
| 13 | Let There Be Drums | instrumental (Taylor) | 3:42 | Nelson, Podolor | |
| 14th | I'm in love with my car | Taylor | 3:36 | Taylor | |
| 15th | Guitar solo | instrumental (May) | 6:59 | May | |
| 16 | Last Horizon | instrumental | 4:44 | May | |
| 2 | 1 | These Are the Days of Our Lives | Taylor | 4:40 | Queen |
| 2 | Radio Ga Ga | Taylor / Rodgers | 5:59 | Taylor | |
| 3 | Can't get enough | Rodgers | 4:22 | Ralphs (Bad Company) | |
| 4th | A kind of magic | Rodgers | 6:07 | Taylor | |
| 5 | I want it all | Rodgers / May | 5:09 | Queen | |
| 6th | Bohemian Rhapsody | Mercury [tape] / Rodgers | 6:18 | Mercury | |
| Additions: | |||||
| 7th | The Show Must Go On | Rodgers | 4:33 | Queen | |
| 8th | All right now | Rodgers | 6:54 | Rodgers, Fraser (Free) | |
| 9 | We will rock you | Rodgers | 2:35 | May | |
| 10 | We are the champions | Rodgers | 4:30 | Mercury | |
| 11 | God Save the Queen | instrumental [tape] | 1:36 | Trad. Arr. May | |
A short excerpt from White Man was quoted in the intro to Fat Bottomed Girls ; May played Chinese Torture as part of his guitar solo .
The DVD contains two additional titles. That remix of It's a Beautiful Day , which was used as an intro at most concerts together with Eminem's Lose Yourself and was only available as an Internet download, was released here for the first time on a phonogram. As a further bonus track, the DVD includes a live version of John Lennon's Imagine . On the occasion of the terrorist attacks on July 7, 2005 in London , due to which their concert had to be postponed by a week, Queen + Paul Rodgers played a cover version of this piece on July 15, 2005 in Hyde Park . May, Taylor and Rodgers shared the lead vocals.
The recording was made by Justin Shirley-Smith and Peter Brandt. The mixes are from Justin Shirley-Smith; Another sound engineer was Joshua J. Macrae .
Chart placements
album
- # 12 - Great Britain (silver).
- # 13 - Germany.
- # 14 - Japan.
- # 19 - Netherlands / Austria.
- # 42 - Switzerland.
- # 80 - France.
- # 84 - USA.
DVD
- # 1 - Great Britain ( platinum ).
- # 2 - Germany / Netherlands / Austria.
- # 3 - Sweden.
- # 4 - Italy.
- # 7 - Portugal.
Sources and Notes
- ↑ For the vocal division between Mercury and Rodgers in Bohemian Rhapsody see www.ultimatequeen.co.uk .
- ↑ a b See for example Thomas Zeidler's comparison ( memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the real concert (or a bootleg recording of it) with the officially published recording.
- ^ Original setlist , reproduced on the Queen Concerts website.
- ↑ a b everyhit.com - UK Top 40 Hit Database ; tsort.info .
- ↑ Chart surfer .
- ↑ dutchcharts.nl: Return of the Champions .
- ^ Return of the Champions. In: austriancharts.at. Archived from the original on February 29, 2008 ; Retrieved August 25, 2014 .
- ↑ hitparade.ch: Return of the Champions .
- ↑ lescharts.com: Return of the Champions .
Web links
- Queen Picture Hall: Return of the Champions - pictures of album covers (English)
- Queen Concerts: Concertography (Queen + Paul Rodgers 2005) - Directory of all concerts and songs performed on this tour (English)
- Queen Concerts: Instruments on tour (Queen + Paul Rodgers tour 2005) - Details of the terms used in the context of this tour instruments (English)
- Return of the Champions in the Internet Movie Database (English)