Queen
Maple Leaf Gardens
Toronto, ON, Canada
February 1st, 1977


Previously uncirculated, this is a nearly complete recording of Queen's first gig in Toronto - only Now I'm Here is missing. The quality is great, although a bit boomy.

This project was crowdfunded by dozens of generous people in the Queen community. I had acquainted with the taper a few years back, and one day earlier this year he told me he had terminal cancer. In exchange for circulating the tapes, he asked for a bit of cash to help make his final arrangements that much easier. Although he taped Queen twice, he wasn't too big a fan - he was more into progressive rock, blues, and experimental jazz like the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Sun Ra Arkestra. Still, listen to these recordings with the knowledge that he wanted the Queen community to enjoy them. He sadly passed away in September 2022.

Upon receiving the tapes I handed them off to Ed and Kieran who took care of the clean-up (largely speed correction and EQing). Both the flat transfer and EQ'd versions are here for the taking.

On a personal note - being from the Toronto area, these are shows I've heard about for decades from countless people who attended them, some of whom remain friends to this day, and it's thrilling for both me and them to finally get to hear them in great sound quality.

After the second song Freddie is pretty pleased that the band finally made it to Toronto, after their shows at Massey Hall in 1974 and '75 were cancelled due to Brian and Freddie's respective health issues. There's some gorgeous phrasing from Mercury throughout the show, like in White Queen and You Take My Breath Away. This is definitely one of his stronger shows in this period, nailing the vocal solo in Somebody To Love with precision and sustaining a lot of higher notes that he usually ducked out of. Musically it's a pretty spotless outing for the band as well.


Ed's notes:

The speed of Big Spender and Jailhouse Rock had to be extensively adjusted due to speedups caused by dying recorder batteries. Side 1 was sped up 1.4 percent, while Side 2 was sped up 1 percent.
This version has also been mastered for improved sound quality.


AUD > Master Cassettes > Nakamichi deck (azimuth adjusted; Dolby off) > Soundforge 10 > WAV 24/48 (Adobe Audition speed correction and tracking, iZotope RX EQ, wow and flutter reduction, pyaudiorestoration mixdown to mono) > FLAC 16/44 level 8


More info:

http://queenlive.ca/queen/77-02-01.htm


Setlist:
01 Overture (fades in) 0:50
02 Tie Your Mother Down 3:34
03 Ogre Battle 5:23
04 White Queen 5:43
05 Somebody To Love 5:06
06 Killer Queen 2:00
07 The Millionaire Waltz 2:55
08 You're My Best Friend 2:00
09 Bring Back That Leroy Brown 1:50
10 Sweet Lady 4:17
11 Brighton Rock (tape flip after song) 11:02
12 '39 3:39
13 You Take My Breath Away 3:28
14 White Man 4:36
15 Vocal Solo 3:10
16 The Prophet's Song (reprise) 2:18
17 Bohemian Rhapsody 5:19
18 Stone Cold Crazy 2:05
19 Keep Yourself Alive 4:36
20 Liar 9:02
21 In The Lap Of The Gods... Revisited (tape flip after song) 4:07
22 Big Spender 1:23
23 Jailhouse Rock 7:06
24 God Save The Queen 1:17

Total Time: 1:36:56


Enjoy, and please keep it lossless (and don't bootleg this - particularly rockinconcerts.com; if you are the person who runs that website, you are pure scum).