1974-05-07 NYC tape discoveries

In light of the recent discoveries about Oakland 1980, I decided to analyze a couple of "one night of a multi night stand" tapes, and in particular, this one grabbed my attention.

Before I get into my discoveries, it should be noted that every Queen site has the Uris shows listed incorrectly. The two show day of the run was May 11th rather than May 10th, as clarified by this advertisement. May 11th was a Saturday, so this makes sense:

With this correction in mind, I now turn my attention to Gary Taylor's Touring North America book. He has listed tapes corresponding to four of the six shows at the Uris. They are listed as May 7th (the only one that circulates. Same show that we all know), May 8th or 9th, May 10th, and May 11th.

The latter three all have the same basic US Queen II setlist without an encore, comprising of:

Procession

Father To Son

Ogre Battle

Son And Daughter

Great King Rat

Liar

Keep Yourself Alive

Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll

What caught my attention about this is that by comparison, "May 7th" has an unusual amount of setlist variety compared to the other three. Its setlist is:

Procession

Father To Son

Ogre Battle

Son And Daughter

Liar

Keep Yourself Alive

Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll

Big Spender

Jailhouse Rock medley

With the existing misattribution and the changed setlist in mind, I was left wondering if "5/7" was in fact from a different night.

There are two speeches on the tape that point to this possibility. Freddie says, "You must be the second notorious audience in New York. Is that right?" after Father To Son, as heard here.

Furthermore, Freddie says before Keep Yourself Alive, "It's really nice to be here. We're gonna have to come back. That's a promise."

This raises the question then: why would he say either of these things if it was the first night in New York? The first comment would only make sense if they really were "the second audience", either the second of the run (May 8th) or the second of the night (May 11th late show).

Freddie also notes how they'll have to come back (presumably to New York), a strange comment if they had five shows left after this one.

Additionally, the setlist has a very rare appearance of Jailhouse Rock and it appears as an encore too, inconsistent with what we know about the other three shows that are known to exist on tape.

Ultimately, I am left wondering if the May 11th late show is the correct date for what circulates, given the "second audience" comment, the comment on how "they'll have to come back" (after all this was the last show of the run and none of those other nights have any reference to what night it is, as the banter transcriptions in the book show), and the unusual setlist for a US Queen II show.

This dating also wouldn't necessarily conflict with how Gary has the other three tapes listed. It would only require the "May 11th" tape he have listed to be from the early show rather than the previously undocumented late show.

I also should note that unlike Oakland 80, this is not the most solid case for a relabel. However, I think it is strong enough to at least warrant posting about.