1982


Queen undertake one their biggest tours of Europe and the UK yet, with 30 dates in all and promoting the new Hot Space album.

The biggest change to this tour, apart from a brand new lighting rig, is the addition of Morgan Fisher, the first person to play live on stage with the band as an auxilliary musician. He will play keyboards and piano to enhance the sound, especially on the new songs and giving Freddie the freedom to move around the stage more.

The support act for the tour is British band Bow Wow Wow. Regrettably, they will not stay for the duration because fans at one gig in Leiden decide to pelt them with bottles and food. Another British band called Airrace take over the support slot for the rest of the tour.

The tour ends at the band's Milton Keynes gig on June 5th, which again is filmed and shown on TV, but the whole show is not officially released until 2004.

In July they start their last tour of the USA, commencing in Montreal and having friend Billy Squier as the support act. Fred Mandel replaces Morgan Fisher on Keyboards and piano and remains throughout the American and Japanese legs of this tour. After the last two nights at the LA Forum, they return to the USA in September and play two songs live on the TV programme 'Saturday Night Live', playing Under Pressure and Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

A return trip to Japan in October entails six concerts in five cities, culminating with an outdoor show at Seibu Lions Stadium on 3 November. The show is filmed and later issued as an exclusively Japanese video titled Live In Japan.

Text taken from the forthcoming revised and updated edition of Queen Live: A Concert Documentary.