IV. Live Performance - Misa

As mentioned in the other sections, this song uses overdubbed technique many times, so it is difficult to perform this song live, especially the first chorus part before the ballad part and the Opera part. Freddie sought many solutions.

The first attempt he made for the opening chorus part is replacing the other songs’ opening parts with the opening chorus of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. At first, Freddie substitute the opening part of the song “Mustapha” for the opening of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, because it was easier since the “Mustapha” opening was solo a cappella while that of “Bohemian Rhapsody” was overdubbed chorus .
Mainly in the Hot Space Tour in 1982, Freddie improvised on the piano, which is in most cases the introduction to “Death on Two Legs”, ended with the first piano notes of the “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

The first solution to the Opera part, which was also full of overdubbing, was to divide up the song and put the opening ballad and ending ballads together. It went like this: the opening and closing ballads part of Bohemian Rhapsody -> Killer Queen -> March of the Black Queen -> (sometimes “Bring Back that Leroy Brown”) -> the hard rock part of the Bohemian Rhapsody.

The second attempt was started in the “A Day at the Races Tour” in 1977. This time, the song started with the opening ballad part, and after Brian May’s guitar solo, all members left the stage and the Opera part was played from tape. When Roger Taylor’s final high note in the Opera part “For me” was played, members returned to the stage and played the hard rock part and closing ballad part. This playing style continued all through the “Magic Tour” in 1986.



Works cited
Wikipedia, Bohemian Rhapsody. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Rhapsody