Thanks, PiotreQ. :)
As for SirGH's question: I didn't understand the first part of it, which means I'm still "crawling" (it's an idiom here! Babies crawl, don't they? lol) in this area, but I'm sure it's the second option: I tried doing the correction on the individual tracks, track by track by track, but eeeeeeeeverybody wants to put me down, they say, I'm going craaazy...hahaha.
It's always nice to go off topic. I'm going to get back to the doubts, but I feel so like going off-topic, it's a compulsion. lol
I was listening to Queen's gig at the Apollo, Glasgow, 1977, what a killer! Somebody to Love - that's why I'm singing it :) - is given such a great performance, especially because the vocal harmonies are working just great, as well as in other songs.
Roger's drumming is flawless and clever. He gives a lot of power to the songs and, at times, he does some clever sparse drumming to afford Freddie "some space", as it were, so that Freddie can sound as if he were singing alone and breaking the silence around - it always adds to the song's lyricism and delicacy, and it prevents Freddie from having to do the same acrobatics as in the recording (best example in this concert is "In the Lap of the God's Revisited").
His drumming in "Somebody To Love", "Tie Your Mother Down" and many other songs is both powerful and correct. Roger is singing very well, but really, really well, he does his share in the vocal harmonies just great, as in Somebody To Love. It's interesting because it sounds much closer to the original. The version, like, in Milton Keynes, 1982, is wonderful, but it's too much, so to say, "Freddie-oriented": there's barely anything worth listening than Freddie's blistering vocals. It's not the case here: the band as a whole does a wonderful job and "Somebody To Love" sounds much closer to the original recording. One could make the argument, perhaps, that the vocal harmonies were being gradually neglected or getting worse over time and the emphasis of whole songs ended up laying on Freddie's vocals only.
In MK 1982, yes, one can almost "see" Aretha Franklin's influence on Freddie's vocals during Somebody to Love and, of course, "Save Me" (Aretha sang a famous song with the same title and the same "ohhhhhhh-ohhhhhhs" lol). Not so much in Glasgow, 1977: it still sounds like the Freddie from a Night At The Opera: delicate singing, powerful, yes, but mainly delicate and precise, without going too loud - the vaudevillian kind of singing he emulated so well and which makes him sound so close to, and at the same time so distant! from, the good old Andrew Sisters, for instance - some operatic spin here and there, but most importantly, a whole lotof humor, delicacy and accuracy in reaching the notes without sounding so loud and dramatic, so to speak, as he sounds later. Different aspects of the same band or singer, I'm not saying this or that is better or worse, I like the whole stuff. :-)
The Appolo gig, just to go totally off topic (lol), it's also remarkable because it's one of the last times I listened to the band performing some songs with humor, especially "Tie Your Mother Down", which is a funny song and should be delivered in a more humorous way, especially live - Freddie does it. He adds some tricks here and there to make the song sound "less serious", so to speal, and it works.
So, end of the off-topic.
Thank you all for the kind words of support (first time I tried doing the speed correction!) and I hope I addressed SirGH's doubt - I didn't really understand the first part of the question, but I know for a fact the what I did falls beneath the second part because I did it on each track!
Thank you, SirGH, for the care and attention. Thanks PiotreQ for the help, and all the others for the helpful comments.
Take care!
Yara
