5. Play The Game (Queen-Live At Wembley Arena: 12/10/1980)

As requested by a wonderful subscriber named "Elton Bootlegs," I will upload Queen's final Wembley Arena show from the 1980 Game Tour! This show is dedicated to Elton Bootlegs, and his hard work on uploading Elton John concerts with creative and original descriptions! I am glad that he requested this show: It is a brilliant and energetic show from Queen, and it is sorely underrated in comparison to other shows from this tour. When most people think of the 1980 Game Tour, the usual concerts are brought up: Inglewood, Oakland, Hartford, Milwaukee, the New York shows, the first Wembley Arena show, and the Brussels shows! While those shows are fantastic, and deserve all the praise they get (especially Oakland and the first Wembley Arena show--my two favorites from the 1980 tour), this show (and others from this tour), need some love! This recording has pretty good quality overall (though it sometimes gets muffled), and is mostly complete (some cuts throughout, and "God Save The Queen" is almost completely missing)!
Despite being the 5th show in 6 nights (and the third night in a row at Wembley Arena), Queen show no signs of slowing down, and deliver a fantastic show! There are quite a few classic moments during this show: There's a nice piano intro by Freddie before "Play The Game," a very nice piano introduction to start off "Death On Two Legs," Freddie's banter before songs is always amusing to hear, Brian's speech before "Love Of My Life" is awesome, the audience sings "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" after the song ends (Freddie loves it), and Freddie calls the audience "delicious" at the show's conclusion!
As for the performances: The entire band sound excellent on the show, and deliver great performances overall! Although a bit rougher than some shows on the European Tour (comparing to the other December shows), Freddie's voice sounds strong, and is in good shape overall! He must have been enjoying this show, because on many songs--he either goes all out, or embellishes/oversings random lines! Notable performances include: "Jailhouse Rock" (he delivers the song very aggressively and throws in higher notes), "Let Me Entertain You" (perhaps the best European version on the tour), "Play The Game" (despite some rough spots, he does awesome phrasing), "Mustapha," "Death On Two Legs," "Get Down Make Love" (he sings it with lots of machismo, and goes for Bb4s that he usually doesn't attempt), the "Now I'm Here/Dragon Attack" section is awesome (the improvs are fantastic), "Fat Bottomed Girls," "Love Of My Life" (a couple vocal breaks, but the phrasing makes up for that), "Keep Yourself Alive," "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," and "We Are The Champions!"
ENJOY!!!
Note: The "Killer Queen" is the classic 1980 version (random oversinging), and Freddie hits a bum chord at the end of the second chorus. I have a feeling that "TSS_Killer" will enjoy this version (he is the man when it comes to analyzing this song)!

[@joytillery8214]

I love to sing, but I don't think I could ever stand to do this over and over again, day after day; gotta give him, and them, a lot of credit.

[@joytillery8214]

In the commentary that goes with the Montreal DVD, Brian May says that those type of intros were to allow mister Freddie to catch his breath after running around a lot the previous two songs. I never thought of that before watching the video, but it makes sense.

[@bhmtake]

A nice piano intro by Freddie before "Play The Game"
This play imagines the intro of '' Barcelona'' Freddie writes.

[@asher3720]

Better than all HS versions

[@joytillery8214]

Indeed, he surely did.

[@user-nh7iu7sq9o]

1:38 Similar to Hot Spaces versions
2:18 ouch....

[@rohanr.9714]

really good second verse, too bad about the bridge