The Game Tour

The Game Tour was the eighth headlining concert tour by the British rock band Queen to support their successful 1980 album The Game. This tour featured the first performances in South America by the group.

The Game Tour

World tour by Queen
Poster to the concerts in São Paulo, Brazil
Location	North America Europe Asia South America
Associated album	The Game
Start date	30 June 1980
End date	18 October 1981
Legs	5
No. of shows	47 in North America 18 in Europe 5 in Asia 10 in South America 80 in total
Queen concert chronology

Background

This tour marked the introduction of a new lighting rig for Queen; the "Fly Swatters", also referred to as the "Bic Razors". This is also the first tour where Freddie Mercury had his moustache grown out. He would often ask the audience what they thought, to a mixed reception, where he would often pledge to keep it.^[1] Several songs from the new album were incorporated, such as "Play the Game", "Need Your Loving Tonight", and "Rock It". The latter two of which saw very few performances on this leg of the tour, with Rock It being dropped before the four Inglewood dates, and Need Your Loving Tonight being dropped in the middle of August. Both songs would return to the stage in one form or another. Notably, "Somebody to Love" was only performed rarely early in the tour, being practically absent in the first three legs, but would return as a staple to the set by early March in South America. Early in the North American tour, as suggested by bootleg recordings, Mercury's voice mostly retained his late 1970s vocal tone in July before changing it to a more "macho" and aggressive style in August to match his appearance.

1980

The July 14, 1980 concert at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Arena

At one of the concerts in Inglewood, Michael Jackson recommended that the band release Another One Bites the Dust as a single, which they did. Believing it not to be single material, the song became a large success for the band, particularly in North America. The Hartford concert in August marks the first known time the song was played live. Dragon Attack was added to the set in Providence later that same month. "You're My Best Friend", a successful single for the band, was dropped from the medley after the last night of the North American leg, at the Madison Square Garden. Some encores of this leg featured Mercury on the shoulders of a Darth Vader cosplayer during the performance of "We Will Rock You".

At the start of the European leg of the tour, the Battle Theme from the Flash Gordon soundtrack was incorporated into the set. "Need Your Loving Tonight" was also reincorporated into the set after a lengthy absence, now coming after "Get Down, Make Love". The concert in Essen featured the first performance of "The Hero" from the Flash Gordon soundtrack, with the second night in Birmingham being the debut of "Flash's Theme".

Due to the murder of John Lennon on the 8th of December, the members of Queen created an arrangement of Lennon's greatest hit, "Imagine", which was played on a handful of dates (in place of "Keep Yourself Alive"), including the night after Lennon's death, and on the final night of the leg. "Need Your Loving Tonight" and "Jailhouse Rock" were also dropped on the 9th.

1981

On the Japanese leg of the tour, Vultan's Theme was added to the setlist on February 13, staying as part of the set until the end of the leg.

Queen (with Mercury in an Argentina jersey) meeting Diego Maradona (in a United Kingdom jersey) before their last concert in Buenos Aires, March 8, 1981 ^[2]

Queen was encouraged to play in South America, after discovering that they were extremely popular. In Buenos Aires, Queen drew a crowd of 300,000—the largest single concert crowd in Argentine history as of 1982^[update].^[3] In São Paulo, Brazil, the attendance was 131,000 and 120,000 on two consecutive nights.^[4] All three Buenos Aires shows were filmed and broadcast, however, only the second night has its footage completely available. A fragment of both the first and third night's are all that are known to exist. The first São Paulo show was also broadcast and is widely available, however, the second night only circulates via a low quality broadcast, and a poor-quality bootleg.

This was the only tour that Queen played in Venezuela, where they were due to play 5 shows in its capital city, Caracas. However, after their third performance on 27 September, the Venezuelan government declared an 8-day period of National Mourning due to the passing of one of Venezuela's former president. The remaining two concerts were cancelled and all tickets were refunded to more than 50,000 fans.^[5] The third night was filmed and was eventually leaked.

Queen were due to play two nights in Monterrey and Guadalajara each, however, due to subpar treatment of the crew by locals during the first night in Monterrey, Queen cancelled the remaining three shows. Two nights in Puebla were quickly set up as replacements, where the band faced unruly crowds that often threw shoes at the band.

Tour dates

List of tour dates with date, city, country, venue

Date	City	Country	Venue	Attendance	Gross	Ref(s)
North America
30 June 1980	Vancouver	Canada	Pacific Coliseum	N/A
1 July 1980	Seattle	United States	Seattle Center Coliseum
2 July 1980	Portland		Portland Memorial Coliseum
5 July 1980	San Diego		San Diego Sports Arena	11,500 / 11,500	$110,000	[6]
6 July 1980	Phoenix		Compton Terrace	8,410 / 8,410	$77,351	[7]
8 July 1980	Inglewood		The Forum	60,800 / 60,800	$594,970	[7]
9 July 1980						[7]
11 July 1980						[7]
12 July 1980						[7]
13 July 1980	Oakland		Oakland Coliseum Arena	19,861 / 29,000	$179,466	[8]
14 July 1980						[8]
5 August 1980	Memphis		Mid-South Coliseum	6,200 / 11,999	$50,611	[9]
6 August 1980	Baton Rouge		Riverside Centroplex Arena	N/A
8 August 1980	Oklahoma City		Myriad Convention Center
9 August 1980	Dallas		Reunion Arena	10,313 / 18,500	$90,925
10 August 1980	Houston		The Summit	10,222 / 17,048	$98,642	[9]
12 August 1980	Atlanta		Omni Coliseum	N/A
13 August 1980	Charlotte		Charlotte Coliseum
14 August 1980	Greensboro		Greensboro Coliseum	5,200 / 8598	$41,976
16 August 1980	Charleston		Charleston Civic Center	5,459 / 7,092	$43,262
17 August 1980[a]	Indianapolis		Market Square Arena
20 August 1980[b]	Hartford		Hartford Civic Center	9,930 /13,000	$91,590	[11]
22 August 1980[c]	Philadelphia		The Spectrum	14,117 / 18,454	$121,764	[11]
23 August 1980[d]	Baltimore		Baltimore Civic Center	8,695 / 12,007	$73,827
24 August 1980[e]	Pittsburgh		Pittsburgh Civic Arena	7,319 / 17,500	$64,260
26 August 1980	Providence		Providence Civic Center
27 August 1980	Portland		Cumberland County Civic Center
29 August 1980	Montreal	Canada	Montreal Forum	16,403 / 16,403	$173,447	[12]
30 August 1980	Toronto		CNE Grandstand	22,312 / 22,312	$227,166	[12]
10 September 1980	Milwaukee	United States	MECCA Arena	6,705	N/A	[13]
12 September 1980	Kansas City		Kemper Arena	10,825 / 12,000	$100,529	[14]
13 September 1980	Omaha		Omaha Civic Auditorium	N/A
14 September 1980	Saint Paul		St. Paul Civic Center	13,900	$133,000	[15]
16 September 1980	Ames		Hilton Coliseum	9,215 / 10,372	$84,143	[15]
17 September 1980	St. Louis		Checkerdome	6,667 / 10,000	$61,295	[15]
19 September 1980	Rosemont		Rosemont Horizon	N/A
20 September 1980	Detroit		Joe Louis Arena	15,559 / 15,559	$152,955	[15]
21 September 1980	Richfield		Richfield Coliseum	N/A
23 September 1980	Glens Falls		Glens Falls Civic Center	7,500 / 7,500	$67,694	[16]
24 September 1980	Syracuse		Onondaga County War Memorial	N/A
26 September 1980[f]	Boston		Boston Garden	13,000 / 13,000	$131,580	[16]
28 September 1980	New York City		Madison Square Garden	50,000 / 50,000	$500,000	[17]
29 September 1980						[17]
30 September 1980						[17]
Europe
23 November 1980	Zürich	Switzerland	Hallenstadion	N/A
25 November 1980	Paris	France	La Rotonde du Bourget
26 November 1980	Cologne	West Germany	Sporthalle
27 November 1980	Leiden	Netherlands	Groenoordhallen
29 November 1980	Essen	West Germany	Grugahalle
30 November 1980	West Berlin		Deutschlandhalle
1 December 1980	Bremen		Stadthalle Bremen
5 December 1980	Birmingham	England	Birmingham International Arena
6 December 1980
8 December 1980	London		Wembley Arena
9 December 1980
10 December 1980
12 December 1980	Brussels	Belgium	Forest National
13 December 1980
14 December 1980	Frankfurt	West Germany	Festhalle Frankfurt
16 December 1980	Strasbourg	France	Hall Rhénus
18 December 1980	Munich	West Germany	Olympiahalle
Asia
12 February 1981	Tokyo	Japan	Nippon Budokan	N/A
13 February 1981
16 February 1981
17 February 1981
18 February 1981
South America Bites the Dust
28 February 1981	Buenos Aires	Argentina	José Amalfitani Stadium	54,000	N/A
1 March 1981				52,000
4 March 1981[g]	Mar del Plata		Estadio José María Minella	30,000
6 March 1981	Rosario		Estadio Gigante de Arroyito	34,000
8 March 1981	Buenos Aires		José Amalfitani Stadium	58,000
20 March 1981	São Paulo	Brazil	Estádio do Morumbi	131,000	N/A
21 March 1981				120,000
Gluttons for Punishment
25 September 1981	Caracas	Venezuela	Poliedro de Caracas	N/A
26 September 1981
27 September 1981
9 October 1981	Monterrey	Mexico	Estadio Universitario
17 October 1981	Puebla		Estadio Ignacio Zaragoza
18 October 1981

Cancelled concerts

16 August 1980	New York City	Battery Park Open Air	Cancelled.[10]
17 August 1980	Cincinnati	Riverfront Coliseum	Cancelled.[10]
2 September 1980	New Haven	Veterans Memorial Coliseum	Cancelled.[10]
5 September 1980	Lexington	Rupp Arena	Cancelled.[10]
9 September 1980	Madison	Dane County Coliseum	Cancelled.[10]
13 March 1981	Porto Alegre	Estádio Olímpico Monumental	Cancelled.[10]
27 March 1981	Rio de Janeiro	Maracanã Stadium	Rescheduled to October 1981, then cancelled.[10]
29 September 1981	Caracas	Poliedro de Caracas	Cancelled due to Romulo Betancourt's national mourning period.[10]
30 September 1981	Caracas	Poliedro de Caracas	Cancelled due to Romulo Betancourt's national mourning period.[10]
10 October 1981	Monterrey	Estadio Universitario	Cancelled.[10]
15 October 1981	Guadalajara	Estadio Jalisco	Cancelled.[10]
16 October 1981	Guadalajara	Estadio Jalisco	Cancelled.[10]

Personnel

• Freddie Mercury – lead vocals, piano, guitar ("Crazy Little Thing Called Love"), tambourine.
• Brian May – guitar, backing vocals, piano.
• Roger Taylor – drums, timpani, lead vocals ("I'm in Love With My Car"), backing vocals.
• John Deacon – bass guitar, additional vocals

Notes

1. The 17 August 1980 concert in Indianapolis originally part scheduled to take place on 7 September 1980.^[10]
2. The 20 August 1980 concert in Hartford was originally scheduled to take place on 24 August 1980.^[10]
3. The 22 August 1980 concert in Philadelphia was originally scheduled to take place on 27 August 1980.^[10]
4. The 23 August 1980 concert in Baltimore was originally scheduled to take place on 26 August 1980.^[10]
5. The 24 August 1980 concert in Pittsburgh was originally scheduled to take place on 31 August 1980.^[10]
6. The 26 September 1980 concert in Boston was originally scheduled to take place on 3 September 1980.^[10]
7. The 4 March 1981 concert in Mar del Plata was originally scheduled to take place at Estadio Olímpico in Monterrey.^[10]