QUEEN AND ADAM LAMBERT SET THE STAGE ON FIRE WITH ‘I WAS BORN TO LOVE YOU’ — and the reaction from Japanese fans was absolutely electric! 🎸

Embedded below, the performance was recorded Aug. 17, 2014, during their set at Tokyo’s Summer Sonic Festival at Marine Stadium. According to a press release, it was the first time they’d ever performed “I Was Born to Love You” with this arrangement, having previously only played the track — originally from Freddie Mercury’s 1985 solo album Mr. Bad Guy but re-made a decade later for Made in Heaven — in a shortened acoustic version.

“I had an obsession with the song, and had the idea to make a new version, simulating how it would have sounded if we had been able to play it live with Freddie on stage,” Brian May said. “So the Queen version was put together as a ‘virtual’ live track, using Freddie’s spectacular vocal as the central thread. Roger [Taylor], John [Deacon] and I played our parts live, to a rearranged template I’d put together – complete with some additions to the arrangement, taking some liberties with the vocal, and even borrowing some choice Freddie ad-libs, to add to the feeling that it was a live band recording. Little did we know that years later we’d have the opportunity with Adam to finally bring this arrangement to life on a real stage.”

“I Was Born to Love You” has a special connection to Japan. It was featured in a 1996 commercial for Kirin Beer and gave Queen their first charting single in that country since 1977. Queen + Adam Lambert have played in Japan twice since 2014, but the Summer Sonic set stands out in their minds.

“We all thought it was quite a difficult gig,” May continued “The audience was wonderful, but with the extreme heat and humidity, it was very difficult to play. However, when we saw the video, we all thought that it had great energy and the interaction with the crowd was great.”

“The Japanese audience was so passionate, so emotional,” Lambert concurred. “You could feel the connection. And it’s different than in other countries; there is something very special there.”

Live Around the World will be released in audio and home-video formats on Oct. 2. You can check out “The Show Must Go On” here.

15. ‘Made In Heaven’ (1995)

Four years after Freddie Mercury’s heartbreaking death from AIDS-related complications, the surviving three members of Queen rallied to compile their singer’s final recordings into the posthumous ‘Made in Heaven.’ The results unfortunately suffered a bit from Freddie’s ailing health and the hodgepodge nature of the material (much of it previously cut for solo albums), but you didn’t hear anyone complaining about this final, unexpected gift of Queen and Mercury’s voice.

14. ‘Hot Space’ (1982)

Decades later, it’s still hard to fathom what possessed Queen to dive off the dance music deep end on 1982’s eternally bewildering ‘Hot Space’ — not least because they spent years boasting there were “no synthesizers” on their albums. Except for an impromptu collaboration with David Bowie on ‘Under Pressure’ (tacked onto the album at the 11th hour), fans have precious few good memories of ‘Hot Space,’ and most of those fall into the guilty pleasure category.

13. ‘The Miracle’ (1989)

In retrospect, it’s evident that work on ‘The Miracle’ was negatively affected by the strain of Freddie Mercury’s recent — though still secret — AIDS diagnosis, but at the time, Queen’s 13th album felt like a disappointingly unfocused pastiche of rock and pop styles. Still, sporadic highlights like the rousing ‘I Want it All,’ the rococo title track, and subliminally revealing ‘Scandal’ gave fans some stellar moments to hang onto while, unbeknownst to them, their favorite band was coming to grips with mortality.

12. ‘Flash Gordon’ (1981)

In the hands of other bands, movie soundtracks are usually vanity projects that rarely stack up to proper studio albums. But not Queen’s first foray into the format via 1981’s ‘Flash Gordon,’ which not only yielded a hit single in Brian May’s explosive ‘Flash,’ but backed it up with a slew of striking instrumental themes that flew listeners straight to the court of Ming the Merciless. Too bad the movie bombed in theaters, but then, this only highlighted Queen’s involvement as the best thing about ‘Flash Gordon.’

11. ‘Innuendo’ (1991)

The final album released during Freddie Mercury’s lifetime was heralded by many as a return to eclectic form, thanks to runaway imagination (see the Spanish guitar-adorned title track) and concise smash hit songwriting (‘These are the Days of Our Lives,’ ‘The Show Must Go On’). But like many LPs released at the height of the CD era, ‘Innuendo’ simply ran a little long with deep album cuts that, at a different point in time may have wisely been left on the outtake list.

10. ‘A Kind of Magic’ (1986)

Queen’s second motion picture soundtrack (for the movie ‘Highlander,’ yet another fantasy adventure), ‘A Kind of Magic’ also stood up on its own as a full-fledged studio album, complete with giant singles like ‘One Vision,’ ‘Friends Will Be Friends’ and the title track (all backed by big budget music videos). Unfairly underrated in America, the album nonetheless topped the charts in many countries and led to the most triumphant (and sadly last) world tour of Queen’s career — later documented on the monumental ‘Live Magic’ release.

9. ‘Queen’ (1973)

Queen’s very first album delivered polar examples of their precocious genius (first single ‘Keep Yourself Alive,’ the outlandish ‘My Fairy King’) and as-yet-unrealized potential (the sleepy ‘Doing All Right’ and a mere sketch of ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’), but it left no doubt about their raw talent and sheer chutzpah. To be sure, this explains why it has since become a firm favorite of diehard fans, even though its actual sales upon release were modest at best. You simply can’t keep a good Queen down.

8. ‘The Works’ (1984)

Following the ‘Hot Space’ debacle, Queen was seriously (ahem) ‘Under Pressure’ to rebound as a viable creative force for the ’80s with 1984’s tellingly named ‘The Works.’ So, in typical style, Queen roared back — helped in no small part by some incredible music videos — with an imposing quartet of era-defining mega-hits, in ‘Its a Hard Life,’ ‘Hammer to Fall,’ ‘I Want to Break Free’ and ‘Radio Ga Ga.’ Yes, American listeners stubbornly resisted their charms, but the rest of the world was never more ga ga for Queen.

7. ‘A Day at the Races’ (1976)

Hardly ones to tremble at the prospect of following up their breakthrough masterpiece, ‘A Night at the Opera,’ Queen simply doubled down on Marx Brothers references and swapped nighttime for daylight with the following year’s classics-laden ‘A Day at the Races.’ Wanna see? Well, first comes the barn-burning-provocative (and future recurring concert-opener) ‘Tie Your Mother Down,’ then the exquisite ballad ‘Take My Breath Away,’ and later the sanctified gospel fervor of epic single ‘Somebody to Love,’ which proved a more-than-worthy riposte to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’

6. ‘Queen II’ (1974)

Because it produced just a modestly performing single in ‘Seven Seas of Rhye,’ ‘Queen II’ has become the ultimate sleeper in the band’s remarkable discography. It also captures some of Queen’s heaviest (‘Father to Son,’ ‘Ogre Battle’), wackiest (‘The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke’), and most progressive aspirations under its memorable “White Side/Black Side” concept (each respectively dominated by Brian May and Freddie Mercury compositions). Cap that with Mick Rock’s iconic LP cover photo of the band and we think our point is made.

5. ‘News of the World’ (1977)

It’s hard to argue with an album containing, not one, but twin No. 1 hits laid back-to-back like ‘We Are the Champions’ and ‘We Will Rock You,’ and we’re sure as hell not gonna try! Especially since, even ‘neath the shadow of those twin monoliths, 1977’s multi-platinum juggernaut ’News of the World’ yielded a raft of perennial — and typically unpredictable — Queen faves like ‘Spread Your Wings,’ ‘Get Down, Make Love’ and ‘My Melancholy Blues.’

4. ‘The Game’ (1980)

Some songs from 1980’s ‘The Game’ have sunk into (mostly) undeserved obscurity over the years (‘Need Your Loving Tonight,’ ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’) and few folks would ever call this Queen’s most consistent album, but, oh, the highs were so high. Both the semi-title track and the dramatic ‘Save Me’ were sizable hits (the likes of which most other bands would dream of obtaining), but the ‘50s rock-flavored ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and John Deacon’s funky ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ were absolute monsters that brought Queen to the peak of their commercial powers in America.

3. ‘Jazz’ (1978)

Whenever discussions take place about Queen’s incredible string of classic albums throughout the late ‘70s, 1978’s ‘Jazz’ is the one that often seems to get the shortest shrift, but tucked away behind its unusually nondescript cover art lies one of the band’s finest albums. Never mind the reliable hit single double-whammy provided by ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ and ‘Bicycle Race,’ ‘Jazz’ is astonishingly deep with underrated Queen gems, ranging from Mercury’s Eastern-spiced wig-out ‘Mustapha,’ to Deacon’s head-banging beast ‘If You Can’s Beat Them, Join Them,’ to Taylor’s infectious disco tune ‘Fun It’ (yes, even that oddity pans out spectacularly). All of them reasons that make ‘Jazz’ the pet favorite of Queen connoisseurs.

2. ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ (1974)

Building on the tentative inroads made by Queen’s first two long players and their supporting touring activities, ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ seemed to pull all the band’s wildest ideas together and became, arguably, the archetypal Queen album. Almost delightfully schizophrenic — just like the four men in Queen — the album effortlessly coasted from the glam-tastic single ‘Killer Queen,’ to the fragile ‘Lily of the Valley,’ to ‘Now I’m Here’s’ staccato bombast, to the thundering speed metal of ‘Stone Cold Crazy. This was a heady blend of adventurous songcraft and increasing pop smarts, and gave Queen the confidence to take their every musical ambition to the next level on their ensuing magnum opus…

1. ‘A Night at the Opera’ (1975)

It’s best known for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ but there’s so much more than that. ‘A Night at the Opera’s’ first half alone convincingly states the album’s case for top of the heap among Queen LPs, with an unimpeachable flowing sequence including the vicious ‘Death on Two Legs,’ the stirring ‘I’m in Love with My Car,’ irresistible ‘You’re My Best Friend,’ the genteel ‘’39.’ Ridiculous. Oh yeah, and then you get your ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in the second course, along with the epic ‘Prophet Song,’ beautiful ‘Love of My Life,’ and quirky ‘Good Company.’ Truly, such genius could only be concluded with a reverential guitar orchestra intoning ‘God Save the Queen.’