8 May 1977, Queen performed @ Johanneshovs Isstadion (Ice Stadium) in Stockholm, Sweden 🇸🇪
This is the second leg (European) of “A Day At The Races Tour”
The band will set out to perform 19 shows to close out the tour, their second European tour and the first since late 1974!
This leg of the A Day At The Races tour finds Freddie’s voice in great shape.
Freddie, after ‘Ogre Battle’: “Thank you. Good evening, Stockholm! Are you ready for some rock and roll tonight? OK, we’re gonna give it to you. I must say, it’s really nice to be here after such a long time. This is our very first time and we’ll have to come back here again. Thank you for the welcome. Tonight we’re gonna do songs from all our albums that you’ve probably got and heard.”
Freddie, after ‘White Queen’: “We’d like to carry on with a song from our latest album. You don’t have singles around here, I mean, not real popular anyway. This used to be a single, and it was on the album anyway, a song called ‘Somebody To Love.’”
‘Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy’ is played live for the first time. It would never be performed completely, as the third verse would be skipped, always following ‘Killer Queen’ in the medley.
After the medley, Freddie says, “That was our longest medley to date… a slightly different version of ‘Bring Back That Leroy Brown.’” He then responds to requests being shouted from the audience. “We’d like… we’re gonna do ‘Liar,’ don’t worry. Right now for you darlings, we’d like to do a number that we’ve never done on stage before. This is the first time ever, and I think it’s nice to do it in Stockholm. Join in if you’d like. This is a song called ‘Death on Two Legs.’” It replaces ‘Sweet Lady’ tonight.
Before ‘Brighton Rock,’ Freddie toasts the audience in Swedish. “Stockholm, cheers! Skål”
In a bit of early tour setlist experimentation, ‘In The Lap Of The Gods…Revisited’ isn’t performed for the first time since being introduced in late 1974, a curious omission as it’s such an effective closing number for the band, both musically and visually. Or perhaps the dry ice machine failed to work? Either way, ‘Now I’m Here’ closes the set proper tonight, ‘Liar’ is the first encore (where it would remain for the rest of the tour), and the second encore is the usual cover songs.
For the bulk of the show, Freddie now wears a black and white checkered costume, replicating one worn by the ballet dancer Nijinsky. For the second encore, he introduces his flashy silver lurex leotard to the show, now performing Big Spender without the strip spectacle.
The members of ABBA attended the gig and met Queen backstage afterwards.
Queen Live
