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1981

In February the band leave London and fly to Japan, where the band undertake a series of five consecutive shows at the Budokan in Tokyo. As with all tours in Japan there are no support bands, and they play before capaicity audiences of 12,000.

Their first ever tour in South America commences on 28 February, where they play huge football stadiums in Argentina and Brazil. After arriving in Buenos Aires they are greeted at the airport by their own music playing over the public address system. The band are also permitted to bypass lengthy arrival procedures, at the express orders of Argentina’s President.

The band return to South America in September for the second leg of the tour where concerts in Venezuela and Mexico are performed. Two other shows in Venezuela (September 29 and 30) are cancelled when former President Romulo Betancourt dies and the country’s population goes into a period of mourning. Betancourt’s deteriorating health had already jeopardised three shows, but he’d held on long enough for them to go ahead.

The last two concerts of the year take place in Canada on November 24th and 25th at Montreal's Forum which are to be filmed. The shows are organised purely because the band want to put together a full length film to properly document their live show. The original idea was to show the film outdoors, but various problems resulted and the idea was cancelled. It was decided that the film would show better at inside venues in America, and was shown throughout 1983. The eventual release of the film was a long and

frustrating process, and then taking nearly three years to get from the concert stage and eventually into UK cinemas and onto home video in 1984.

Text taken from the forthcoming revised and updated edition of Queen Live: A Concert Documentary.