Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
A timely reissue of an old favourite is guaranteed to be successful, but a re-release of arguably one of the best examples of a craft being undertaken at the height of an artist’s popularity is a reveal that belongs in the soul of the one willing to embrace a sound, a time, to which will never happen again.
When Queen took to themselves to Montreal’s Forum in the last days of their The Game Tour, the thought that the band would only do four more tours, and one huge, seismic event at Wembley as part of Live Aid in 1985 would have sounded preposterous; this was surely a band that would go into the next decade and beyond as arguably the headline act from Britain to which everyone would want to see over and over again.
Time is not perfect, it has no emotional ties to how we think, it is just a perception of will and memory, and when your understanding comes from a period when you were too young to fully grasp the enormity of finality, of just how quickly fate can decide that love and beauty will ever be seen in the same way ever again.
The relish in which Queen Rock Montreal comes over the airwaves is that passionate reminder of just how cool, how theatrical the band could be when placed under the spotlight, just how insanely cohesive and interconnected they were, and in each song that was played inside the Forum that connection takes on such a resonance, that aside from the emotional filled evening at Wembley and the atmospheric ride that ensued, the live set at Montreal is possibly the best example of the group in all their pomp and ceremony to be captured on vinyl.
Jealousy is an ugly and useless emotion, but the listener cannot but feel the urgency of covetousness as the lengthy set is given its rightful place in the Canadian city, and as We Will Rock You, Play The Game, Killer Queen, Roger Taylor’s magnificent vocals on I’m In Love With My Car, Dragon Attack, the subtle crowd pleaser of the Leiber and Stoller cover of Jailhouse Rock, and Sheer Heart Attack flood the emotional barriers to an overwhelming place to where someone sailing on the nearby St. Lawrence River would feel the groove swelling the water underneath them an prepare themselves for a tsunami of rock to overpower them.
Queen Rock Montreal maybe a reissue for the crowd tantalised by the 180g phenomenon, but at its heart it is a reminder of the grace and the scintillating passion at the heart of one of the world’s most powerful onstage performers.
Ian D. Hall