#leaving me to solo parent for the 4th day in a row

[legobabyofficial]

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[natromanxoff]

Queen live at Empire Theatre in Liverpool, UK - December 7, 1979

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Freddie's black leather pants had both blue and red kneepads just to keep the football fans of both Liverpool and Everton happy, as Brian explained at some point during the show. For their own amusement during the acoustic set, Brian and Freddie played a bit of Mull Of Kintyre after Freddie mentioned how Wings had just played in Liverpool. Freddie jokingly said, "I'll be Linda McCartney." The band perform Liar on the second night in Liverpool, as they always did when playing two consecutive nights at a venue on this tour. The first picture was taken by Jim Jenkins, and the second by Ian Stewart Brown during We Are The Champions. The last photo set was taken by Doug Price and cleaned up by Ryan Newton.

Fan Stories

“I was fortunate to see Queen make their debut on T.O.T.P. in early 74. This was the time that Glam rock was at its peak, as a 10 year old I used to enjoy watching the likes of Mud, Slade, Sweet and Gary Glitter. I had never heard of Queen before seeing them on T.O.T.P, from that appearance I was hooked! The sound and visual image of the band took my appreciation of music to a level which was far ahead of the other acts that i used to enjoy. The song that they performed, Seven Seas Of Rhye, has stood the test of time so well over the last 29 years. For the next 5 years I would always listen out for a new Queen single release hoping that i could see the band perform the single on the TV. A couple of months after my 15th birthday I had the opportunity to see the band play live in Liverpool on the Crazy tour. It was to be an early Christmas present off my parents and they were taking me to the concert 80 miles away from my home town with another Queen fan called Elizabeth (good name for a Queen fan!). To say I couldnt wait was an understatment! Just over a week before the gig I went down with chicken pox, my Mother said "You can't go to the concert as you might give it to Freddie!", but, it was going to take more than chicken pox to stop me seeing the band for the first time! The concert took place on a Friday, I remember being in school and a couple of mates being almost as excited for me as i was for myself, as i was always telling them how much i loved Queen! We had excellent seats, in the 4th row, on Brian's side. There was no support band, so, when the lights of the theatre where dimmed you can imagine the atmosphere in there, a cloud of dry ice slowly wafted into the audience with the intro tape playing, I'm shaking my head typing this as I can remember it so well, just goes to show that you never forget your first one! This is what I had been waiting for, for so long, the opportunity of seeing Queen live, I had heard so many times of what a great live show they would perform, before this I had only seen their Christmas eve gig on the TV in 75. I hadn't even heard a bootleg tape before I purchased Live Killers, an album that I couldn't wait to buy, and played to death in my bedroom in the summer of 79! The lighting rig was suspended about 6 ft high above the stage, this was slowly raised to reveal the hundreds of white, green and red lights piercing through the dry-ice and into the noisy, excited crowd, an explosion was the cue for the band to enter the stage, they ripped into Jailhouse rock, with the customary, as I was to learn, always, last on stage appearance of Freddie. There he was about 10 ft away from me, unbeliavable, first impressions? He was smaller than what I thought, on the TV he seemed to give off the appearance he was a lot bigger, or was that just the way his stage presence came over on TV? He was dressed in all black leather, including the hat, and the "fly" eye shades. Not to displease any of the city's football fans in the audience Brian later revealed that was the reason, why Freddie was wearing blue and red kneepads! The set list was similar to Live Killers, but included Save Me which wasn't to be released as a single until the next month. The majority of people reading this will have seen Queen in concert, so you know how brilliant a Queen gig was. With the glorious benefit of hindsight I was fortunate that I had such a great seat to see the band in action for my first time. A year later and my first gig could have been at the back of the N.E.C. in Birmingham. All too soon the gig finished, on leaving the theatre O noticed that my ears where ringing from the volume of the concert, the ringing didnt stop until the next Tuesday! December 91, two weeks after Freddie has passed away and I'm back at The Empire for the first time since my first Queen gig, of all the places to go back to... I explained to my partner that it was a gig I wanted to miss as it would be too painful to visit the Theatre in the circumstances, she talked me around, so I took my seat in the circle to see the gig by Paul Young, who I had seen before, and to this day I still like. Whilst the support act was on, I looked down into the stalls, from the right of the theatre I looked at the 4th row and counted the seats until I got to the 12th seat, the seat I had for my first Queen gig, the memories came flooding back of that night, my throat was choked as I took a journey on the gigs that I had seen after I had been in that seat - 3 trips to Paris, 2 to Brussels, Cologne, Hot Space tour, attending the 7 gigs in the U.K. on The Works tour, down the front at the Live Aid gig, The Magic tour, every opportunity I had to see the band in action I took, they would never happen again, being a Queen fan you can probably realise how I was hurting at that time? A couple of years later Brian performed in Liverpool at The Royal Court Theatre, just down the road from The Empire, I was made up that he was playing in Liverpool as this was a chance to see Brian's first visit to Liverpool since my first concert in 79. It was a great concert with a brilliant atmosphere. On Brian's next tour 5 years later I was fortunate to meet him, and he signed a photo of a picture I had taken from his gig in Liverpool in '93. On telling him of the gig it was taken at, he commented on what a great night that had been, and how he was disappointed he couldn't book the venue on the tour he was on. The Brian gig in Liverpool was just what I needed after my return to The Empire, perhaps I am asking for too much, but, it would be great to see Brian perform sometime at The Empire! If your ticket for the gig is Row D, Seat 12, after reading this you can understand why I would want to swap tickets with you?!” - Kevin Hughes

“We set off for Manchester early Saturday morning one day in September 1979. I had to bribe my brother in-law(not a Queen fan) with the promise of a ticket and petrol money as I couldn't drive at the time. We arrived at Manchester Apollo before opening hours but found to my horror that they'd already been open an hour. We got to within sight of the ticket office and the inevitable happened - the sold out sign came out. Two long months later, concert day at last. I had a stomach like a child on Christmas Eve. I had a few cans on the way (Tartan bitter, remember them?) When we parked up I was physically sick due to the excitement of course(nothing to do with beer, honest). After a bit of banter in the queue we finally got to our seats. We weren't near the front but with it being a theatre we were never going to be that far from the stage. The lights dimmed, there was dry ice everywhere, the pizza oven began to rise, then Queen exploded on to the stage singing We Will Rock You. The crowd rose as one everybody jumping up and down like demented animals. We had a burst of Millionaire Waltz, Brian playing piano on Save Me. The crowd kept on singing Crazy Little Thing Called Love long after the music had finished and Freddie doing the dance he did in the video. I remember singing Love Of My Life the whole way through with the crowd as Freddie listened, then singing it all again with him. Roger's big drums, Brian's guitar solo, then Freddie and the boys whipping the crowd into another frenzy with Bohemian Rhapsody, Sheer Heart Attack and Tie Your Mother Down. Then Freddie on the shoulders of Superman singing We Will Rock You and then the song to end all concerts - We Are The Champions. As that was my first Queen concert, it was a very special one for me. I was lucky enough to see them six times and I can say "hand on heart" every show was a different experience. I think some of you will know what I mean. I'm no writer(as you can probably tell) so I hope this all makes sense to you and I hope you got a little bit of the excitement and emotion I had in 1979.” - Ducksoup

[birdsofchristmas]

Chapter 6: The Swinging Christmas Tree

The oddest thing about most of the Christmas TV specials I watched growing up was that almost everything talked- animals talked, people talked, snowmen, ornaments, trees, toys, squirrels - everything seemed to have an opinion on Christmas and a desire to express it verbally.

It makes sense then that when my parents told me we were going to a singing Christmas tree I thought they were talking about an actual tree that danced and sang. For days I pictured an anthropomorphic green giant with sticks as arms, standing gleefully singing holiday tunes. My imagination even stretched into scenarios where the tree became disgruntled from years of imprisonment, breaking free of the 4-peg metal stand holding it in place then terrorizing the horrified audience of mostly attractive young parents.

I was in awe of the thing when I first beheld it at age 8, but even before the singers were ushered into its branches I was sitting in the padded seats of the church thinking “what’s it going to look like when it starts dancing?”

I learned that night that the term “singing Christmas tree” is a complete misnomer. For those who have never seen one the singing tree is a large choir performance of holiday tunes accompanied by some kind of live theatre performance. Actors, a running plotline, props and scenes, the whole lot.

The tree itself is a series of podiums stacked one by one, the widest at the base with gradually narrowing levels ascending to the ceiling of the church, decorated with all manner of lights and green fabric. The choir would be lined in rows with 20 on the first layer and less as the tree progressed higher, with a few lucky individuals perched on the very top level.

It became a family tradition to see the tree every year, and as the years progressed my interests shifted from cap guns and action figures to music and performing, and so my appreciation for the performances of the tree deepened with each attendance, extending even to my first Christmas returning home from college.

You might be balking at the idea that a giant plywood tree with choir singers would have any mass appeal, but these things are wildly popular. One church in Vancouver sees around 20,000 attendees over the course of six evenings every year, with reserved seats disappearing faster than Backstreet Boys tickets in the 90s!

It wasn’t like trying to see a Tyler Perry movie in theatres- if you didn’t show up on time seating would be highly scarce, and being that my family was never the type to be in a hurry finding a good spot was always a bit of a crap shoot.  Quite often we’d show up minutes before the curtain call and have to be seated in various single chairs throughout the church, only seeing each other again after the performance.

This year was different because I insisted on driving, and because I lied about what time the show actually started. “6:30,” I shouted throughout the house to my parents, “It starts at 6:30! We can’t be late!” We’d leave the house at 6:38 and arrive at the church by 7pm, well ahead of the the 7:30 start time.

When it came to picking seats my parents were the most indecisive people you could ever imagine, regularly shifting seats at Nanaimo Clippers hockey games and even during movies, sometimes after the movie started! Hockey games are fair enough, but playing musical chairs during a movie was just terrible. I was always more of a settler than a nomad, content to find a good seat and sit comfortably without the anxious thought there there was always a better seat out there somewhere.

My parents started their 2 Stooges routine as soon as we arrived at the church, with “Oh, we’re really on time” and “oh, where should we sit? The balcony? I don’t want to sit too close to the stage, no not here, over there”, but I wasn’t having any of it. I strode with bold confidence into the foyer, stopping only to receive a program being passed out by the ushers, right into the auditorium, down the aisle sitting down almost immediately into the first decent enough looking seat I could find.

Twenty minutes later the director of the play approached a microphone to give his opening welcome. It was at this point I started to casually flip through the program, stopping in my reading tracks when I saw a statement in bold lettering that said “please note, there will not be an intermission for this performance”. In my rush to get a good seat I’d forgotten the golden rule of seeing plays and movies- always go to the bathroom before you sit down.

Another twenty minutes later minutes nature started calling, and calling very loudly, and I started to regret the venti peppermint latte I’d picked up on the way. The choir was singing beautifully, the acting was engaging, but I was too distracted to fully enjoy the show. At one point I looked down at the empty coffee cup sitting on the ground in front of me, thought about it for a second, then said to myself, “no, that’s a really bad idea, I should just get up”.

I shuffled down the pew awkwardly and proceeded to the exit in search of a restroom. I couldn’t see it anywhere and walked almost the entire perimeter of the foyer until I spotted a small restroom sign. When I was leaving the restroom I noticed another sign in an adjacent hallway. It had an arrow pointing left and it said “choir members, this way”.

I have to admit most of my bucket list has something to do with Christmas- celebrating the holiday in Australia for instance, or driving a Shriner car through the Santa Claus parade, or building a life sized edible gingerbread house, or proposing to my future wife by wrapping myself in a giant box with a bow, then jumping out with a ring proclaiming “marrying you is the best gift I could ever ask for babe!”

As I stood in front of the arrowed sign I felt it was a golden opportunity to cross “singing in a giant Christmas tree” off my list, and I’d be a fool to pass it up.

I followed the sign to another sign at the end of the hall, then down another another hall like a mouse in a maze. I was surprised a security guard or a spinster hasn’t stopped me at this point. You know these people, there’s a few in every church- they’re the self appointed vigilantes and guardians who adhere strictly to the rules and expect others to do so as well. If you look slightly out of place they’ll stop you and ask “excuse me sir, can I help you?” I’m always tempted to reply with “why yes, you can! I need a ride to the airport next week, would you mind driving me??”

At last I scurried though a tall purple curtain with another sign that said “performers entrance” into a room strewn about with jackets and purses and a rolling clothes rack full of empty wire hangers. At the very end of the rack there was a long, green sparkled gown I recognized as one of the choir uniforms.  

It was an awkward fit at first, and it smelled like hadn’t been washed since Christmas 1998, but I managed to get the robe on. There was a tag on the neck that said XXXL and a zipper on the back with a long string attached to it, which I assumed was an emergency escape cord in case of a fire or an earthquake. I took 2 steps and immediately stumbled, tripping on the excess fabric. It felt like I was wearing an open parachute. As I fumbled about I sang a quick vocal warm up, “Maaaaaaaaaahh, maaaaaaaaaay, meeeeeeee, muuuuuuust be santaaaaa…”

The entrance to the tree was an obvious arched entryway, beside that a final and definitive sign- “the Lord bless and keep you” with a diagram of the tree. I searched the sign until I found “Baritones: third level” and made my way into the tree’s hallowed plywood branches.

The choir was mid-song as I shimmied onto the platform, bumping into a guy who was as tall as me but about 100 pounds bigger. He looked like he’d make a great Santa in about 20 years time if his career in the CFL didn’t pan out. I whispered to him “sorry I’m late, I forgot my sheet music.” He whispered back in the lowest bass tone I’ve ever heard “s'ok, borrow mine”.

The thing I wasn’t expecting was the lights- red lights, yellow lights, green lights, lights beaming in my eyes hiding the audience from view, lights beaming from the ceiling and from the stage floor.

There were even spotlights on all sections of the choir as individuals took turns preforming solos. I sang happily through three carols, partway through the 4th I heard the low voice next to me say “bub, your parts next”. I froze with fear and looked around nervously, then I noticed there was a tiny black bauble on a long black string a mere foot in front of where I was standing. With the realization this was a microphone came the realization that my voice was going to heard well and clearly by every member in the audience!

When I thought about sneaking into a singing Christmas tree I was expecting to be just a single needle in the tree, unnoticed as an individual. I thought maybe I’d blend in, and if I was off key no-one would really notice. But now I was about to become an entire branch, to be tested by the mighty winds of high expectation to see if I could stand up to the pressure.

The spotlight hit me and I belted out the solo, giving it my best with gusto, summoning courage usually only possible after a double gin & tonic. Then I heard a giant applause with hooting and whistling from one corner of the church. The Pentecostal youth group I’d volunteered with for 5 years before leaving for college was attending in almost full force, taking up an entire section! They recognized me and cheered me on in full Pentecostal fashion, laughing and buzzing long after my solo. I imagine part of their excitement may have been them thinking I was speaking in tongues, because I only knew half the words to the solo.

I stayed on for the rest of the performance, by the end sweating profusely but filled with unimaginable joy. I didn’t stay in the tree for the standing ovation, instead sneaking back through the mouse maze hearing the cheering reverberate throughout the church before returning to my seat. I sat down as the ovation continued and breathed a sigh of relief. I’d gotten away with sneaking into the tree and besides my former youth group the crowd was none the wiser.

It was then I felt a hand on my shoulder, a grip so firm I knew it could only have belonged to a police officer. I felt the same grip one year at my old high school when I was setting off fireworks in the back field. The same grip I felt on my arm after jumping into the outdoor pool in Bowen Park late at night. The same grip I felt on my shoulder when I was caught sneaking into the walk in freezer at summer camp trying to steal ice cream. The jig was up, there was a security guard after all, and I’d been caught!

I turned around and to my surprise the grip belonged to a sweet elderly woman, with glittering eyes and a cheerful smile. I leaned down towards her and she said in a kind sounding voice “my that was very well done, thank you very much”. She had recognized me from the choir because I was still wearing the giant parachute choir robe, and I responded with a very embarrassed “thank you so much”, turning as red as a Christmas poinsettia. Her grandson, and more importantly her granddaughter, were smiling at me as well saying “yeah that was great, thanks”. This was followed by more undeserved thanks from several other grandmothers and their granddaughters while I inched towards the foyer doors.

I thought I was finally in the clear when I heard a shout from the stage, as one of the members of the choir said “Hey, aren’t you coming to the afterparty?” My parents were standing at the front door holding their coats. I put my hands up in an “I dunno” position. My dad nodded at me with a smile, winked at me, and off my parents left for home while I walked down to aisle, back to the stage, through the mouse maze, to the after party happening in the church’s library with a stack of pizza boxes in the shape of a Christmas tree.

One of the choir members approached me saying, “I don’t recognize you from practice, were you part of the tree?” And the guy with the bass voice came over and said “hey of course he was, this is Daniel, he was filling in for Mike!”

And so for the remainder of the night I was Daniel, and I was Daniel again for the following three years of returning to sing in the Christmas tree. The third year I sang on the very top level, which only lasted a few songs because I’m afraid of heights. I’ve been singing on the 2nd level ever since.