The A Day at the Races Tour was a concert tour by the British rock band Queen, and supported their late 1976 album A Day at the Races.
This tour was the first to use the song "Somebody to Love" and many others. "Brighton Rock" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" were performed in full for the first time. Also, singer Freddie Mercury performed a vocal canon to segue between "White Man" and "The Prophet's Song".
The opening act on most of the North American leg was Thin Lizzy. In New York City, the concert at Madison Square Garden was sold out within moments of tickets going on sale.
The final two shows on the tour at Earls Court was filmed and is widely traded among fans. These shows were of note as the band used an expensive lighting rig in the shape of a crown for the very first time. Both shows were also officially recorded on video and the first show was also released on many bootlegs in almost excellent quality. Both gigs included a Rock'n'Roll Medley (this medley is also the only bootleg recording from the second night).
Read more about A Day At The Races Tour: Setlist, Tour Dates
Famous quotes containing the words day, races and/or tour:
“In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Listen, my friend, there are two races of beings. The masses teeming and happy—common clay, if you like—eating, breeding, working, counting their pennies; people who just live; ordinary people; people you can’t imagine dead. And then there are the others—the noble ones, the heroes. The ones you can quite well imagine lying shot, pale and tragic; one minute triumphant with a guard of honor, and the next being marched away between two gendarmes.”
—Jean Anouilh (1910–1987)
“Left Washington, September 6, on a tour through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia.... Absent nineteen days. Received every where heartily. The country is again one and united! I am very happy to be able to feel that the course taken has turned out so well.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)