| City: | Basingstoke, England |
| Venue: | Queen Mary College |
| Date: | July 13, 1973 |
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Queen's self-titled debut album was released in the UK on this day. It would go largely unnoticed by the public and the press, at least until they toured with Mott The Hoople in the autumn. Freddie apparently almost lost his voice after this gig, and his leg was heavily bruised from hitting it so hard with his tambourine. A night before the gig, Brian May did an interview with Zoo World (published on 20 December 1973), sharing this about the state of their show at the time: "Our stage act is a show, more rock 'n' roll oriented than the album, actually, as at this stage of the game. If you go on stage and people don't know your material you can get boring if you do all your own stuff all of the time. So we do more heavy rock 'n' roll with the Queen delivery to give the people something to get hold of - get on/sock it to 'em/get off. Give 'em a show, but don't make anything but the music your foundation. We do some R&B things, Bo Diddley's 'I'm a Man', Elvis Presley's 'Jailhouse Rock', as well as Little Richard's 'Bama Lama'. Apart from that, we do our heaviest numbers, we regard records and playing live as two separate things. [...] We're not afraid to put everything we can on a record, making it a big production. Obviously there's a connection between records and performances, but they don't have to necessarily be the same. It's very regal and dignified on stage. [...] We keep numbers fairly short on stage. We're more into playing songs as we did the whole jamming thing in the old band. Jamming is great in a way, cause it gives you great experience in playing with someone and playing what you're thinking all the time, but to watch a band do that you see it as self-indulgence." According to this article in the August 11 Record Mirror, the band were already using a limo to get to and from gigs (even though they were mostly playing small clubs)! Well-known photos taken by Michael Putland, many of which are available in a book called "Queen Unseen" by Peter K. Hogan, have long been attributed to this concert date, but they were actually taken five days earlier at a rehearsal studio on North End Road in Fulham, London. One of them was first seen in the July 28, 1973 Melody Maker. In case he breaks a string on the Red Special, Brian May now has a spare guitar waiting for him - a Fender Stratocaster. It's unknown precisely when he started to bring a spare to shows, but he mentioned the Strat in his first couple published interviews in the summer of 1973, with Guitar and Record Mirror, the latter of which was set up by Trident's publicist Tony Brainsby. In the "Guitar" piece he speaks about the hypothetical of using two stereo delays with his Echoplex unit, although he was still only using the one on stage at this point - but the idea is percolating, and would take over a year to fully germinate. |