TALON'S TAKE
Brighton RockWritten by: Brian May
Musicians:
Freddie Mercury - lead and backing vocals
Brian May - guitars, backing vocals
John Deacon - bass guitar
Roger Taylor - drums, backing vocals
- This is it! The song that Brian May's legendary guitar solo has built to and has been built from ever since! Started in Smile's
Blag and built onwards in both concert and in the BBC version of
Son And Daughter this is where it culminates. With a vocal intro and outro the meat of the song is Brian's riff-o-rama of delays, layers, and fretwork fireworks! An excellent solo
- Early titles of track included:
Brighton Fuck, Happy Little Fuck, Happy Little Day, Blackpool Rock, Bognor Ballad, Southend Sea Scout, Skiffle Rock, and Herne Bay.-Played live from the get-go! At first Brian would incorporate a live solo in it sometimes extending the track for a long amount, and sometimes it would be done without the long intro. After awhile Brian would just do the solo...and eventually no matter what solo he did it was often called the
Brighton Rock Solo. Even the Olympics Closing Ceremony was called
Brighton Rock but in truth there is only a few parts that are really reminiscent of the original track here.
QUOTES
- "I’d gotten away from Hendrix quite a bit by that time and I’d like to think that was more sort of developing my style really. Particularly the solo bit in the middle, which I’d been doing on the Mott the Hoople tour and sort of gradually expanded and has got more and more ever since. Although I keep trying to throw it out it keeps creeping back in. That involves the repeat device actually using it in time which I don’t think, had been done before up to that time. It’s a very nice device to work with because you can build up harmonies or cross rhythms and it’s not a multiple repeat like Hendrix used or even The Shadows used, which is fairly indiscriminate, sort of makes a nice noise. But this is a single repeat, which comes back and sometimes I’ll add a second one too. So you can actually plan or else experiment and do a sort of ‘phew’ type effect. So that was at its very beginnings on ‘Brighton Rock’ and it became more developed after that.” – Brian May - 1983 - Radio One
UNRELEASED VERSIONS:
EARLY VERSION (A.K.A. BRIGHTON FUCK)- NOT essential listening.
- Played at a Queen convention complete with archivist Greg Brooks saying "Property Of Queen Productions" over the top.
- Obviously the lyrics are incomplete as Freddie sings a lot of "la-las". The bass is noticeably different at moments too.
UNRELEASED AND UNHEARD:
QUEEN II DEMO- Apparently several early versions of the track originate from
Queen II sessions. The above demo might or might not be from
Queen IIOFFICIALLY RELEASED LIVE VERSIONS:
LIVE KILLERS VERSION- AUDIO only
- Features a LONG solo by Brian. Excellent version.
LIVE AT WEMBLEY STADIUM - 1986- Just the solo. Actual video.
UNRELEASED LIVE VERSIONS:
LIVE AT HAMMERSMITH 1975- Full band version with some amazing work by Brian! Often the band would start
Brighton Rock go into Brian's solo and then end with a snippet of
Son And Daughter That is why the song ends a bit abruptly.
- If you watch you'll see liquid come off of Roger's drums...that's beer. He often poured beer on his drum heads to give him a thicker, more fluid sound (no pun intended!...ok maybe a little intended
)
LIVE AT HOUSTON - 1977- One of the greatest unreleased concerts...hopefully some day! This version is just the band version without the extended solo as Brian did a solo later in the gig.
LIVE AT THE OLYMPICS- Includes a bit of Day-Oh from Freddie and the We Will Rock You performance with Jesse J
PERSONAL NOTES:
- The world's greatest guitarist doing what he does best. Pure Brian May. If I had one song to showcase what Brian does best, this is one of the top five I would put in the hat to choose from.
CHANCES:
Brighton Rock......5% -- The full song that is. Brian is definitely doing a solo as in 110% and it will contain elements from this solo. His solo has always been based from this track and it always will be.
SUPPLEMENTAL:
BijouWritten by: Freddie Mercury/Brian May
Musicians:
Freddie Mercury - lead vocals, keyboards
Brian May - guitars
- Issued on the B-Side to ‘Innuendo’ in 1991 in the UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and Spain
- Reportedly a Freddie idea to have a vocal solo in the middle of an instrumental piece to be backwards to a typical vocal piece with an instrumental break.
- Also reportedly is that the friends switched roles a bit. Freddie wrote the guitar part and Brian wrote the vocal part.
- Brian added this to his guitar solo during the 2008 tour with a taped Freddie singing the middle section before fading. This live version released on Live In Ukraine and on 2008 Official Downloads.
ALTERNATE RELEASES
VINYL EDITNO YT VID
- NOT essential, really just cuts out the second half of the song.
LIVE VERSION
QPR - LIVE IN UKRAINE 2008- As part of Brian's overall guitar solo with Last Horizon
PERSONAL NOTES: Oh so beautiful. Just a very powerful song and in a way limiting Freddie to just those lines in the middle make the vocal so much more powerful. One of my favs!
CHANCES:
Bijou.....25% -- He played it during QPR as part of his solo and I thought it was awesome...was a bit disappointed it didn't reappear with QAL. It was a nice touch adding a bit more Freddie.
