by Georg Purvis
The song was one of the few to be premiered before its official release date, when it was performed at the four summer shows in 1976. With only Freddie on vocals and piano, he was amazed that it went off so well (it’s breathtaking to listen to the performance from Hyde Park, despite audience members shouting for people to sit down). “‘You Take My Breath Away’ is a slow ballad with a new twist,” Freddie explained to Circus in 1977. “That’s another track I did at Hyde Park, with just me on the piano. It was very nerve-wracking, playing all by myself in front of 200,000 people. I didn’t think my voice would come through; it’s a very emotional, laid-back number.”
The song remained in the set list until June 1977, when it was replaced by ‘My Melancholy Blues’.
YOU’RE MY BEST FRIEND (Deacon)
• Album: Opera • A-side: 5/76 [7] • Live: Killers • CD Single: 11/88 • Bonus: Opera • CD Single: 12/95 [6]
By 1975, John hadn’t exactly established himself as a proficient songwriter. He had missed out on composing songs for the first two albums, and his first composition – ‘Misfire’ from Sheer Heart Attack – was an inoffensive but slight pop song that lacked substance. It’s surprising, then, that ‘You’re My Best Friend’ has become one of John’s most well-known and endearing songs, and that it broke the tradition of Freddie- and Brian-only singles.
“I’m very pleased with that, actually,” Freddie told Rock Australia magazine in 1976. “John has really come into his own. Brian and myself have mostly written all the songs before, and he’s been in the background; he’s worked very hard, and his song’s very good, isn’t it? It’s nice. It even adds to the versatility, y’know what I mean. It’s nice that four people can write and they’re all strong; if John or anyone else wrote a song that we thought was weak, it would never be on the album. So he has had to work really hard on it to keep up the standard.”
Written for his wife Veronica (the two had been dating since 1971, and married in January 1975) and composed on an electric piano, which John also plays on the final cut, ‘You’re My Best Friend’ is a simple love song with no hidden or deeper meanings: John is in love, and he wants the world to know. “Freddie didn’t like the electric piano,” John explained in a Christmas Eve 1977 BBC radio interview, “so I took it home and I started to learn on the electric piano and basically that’s the song that came out of the thing when I was learning to play it. It was written on that instrument and it sounds best on that.”
“John just came from nowhere with this song,” Brian explained. “It was only the second song he’d written for the group and it was just this perfect pop song.” The guitarist continued: “I think [the song] is amazing. He went out completely on a limb to do that. It’s not the kind of thing we’d done before but he knew exactly what he wanted.”
It was a huge risk to issue the song as the follow-up to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, since it was the complete opposite of that single. Unpretentious, short and sweet, it was nevertheless a Top Ten UK hit, reaching No. 7 in Britain and even reaching a respectable No. 16 in the US. A performance video, again directed by Bruce Gowers, was shot in April 1976 at Elstree Studios. It isn’t as groundbreaking as its predecessor but conveys the mood nicely: the band are seated in a barn with the only natural light coming from hundreds and hundreds of candles. The result, which is a rather subtle and deliberate downplaying of the previous single’s eccentricities, is sentimental. Its sentimentality was shattered somewhat, however, when Roger declared on the commentary track for the video on the Greatest Video Hits 1 DVD in 2002 that the day was blisteringly hot and that the farmers had only recently moved the cows out, making the atmosphere all the more stifling.
‘You’re My Best Friend’ was performed as part of the medley between September 1976 and September 1980, and almost every performance of the song in that time sounds strangely similar. The song was remixed in 1991 for the Hollywood Records reissue of A Night At The Opera, adding an echo to the drums but leaving the majority of the song untouched. For the 2011 deluxe edition of the album, an intriguing instrumental mix was released, which stripped away the vocals and exposed the subtle beauty of the backing track.
(YOU’RE SO SQUARE) BABY I DON’T CARE (Leiber/Stoller)
• Live: Wembley
Opening the rock ‘n’ roll acoustic medley after ‘Is This The World We Created...?’ during the 1986 Magic tour was this hit by Elvis Presley. This song showed the band in high spirits, evident on the Live At Wembley Stadium DVD, in which Freddie cavorts around the stage in a policeman’s hat.
YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE
An unreleased recording by Freddie dating from the A Kind Of Magic sessions, nothing is known about this song except the title and that it’s a piano-based demo; it’s unlikely that the band recorded this.
YOU ’RE YOUNG AND YOU ’RE CRAZY:
see BANANA BLUES
YOUNG LOVE (Taylor)
• Album (Roger): Frontier
The second side of Strange Frontier is a curious blend of electronically programmed songs and power anthems, a hodgepodge of styles growing out of the belief that throwing enough modern-day production at any given song will make it successful. However, the song that succeeds the most is ‘Young Love’, a track which is sandwiched between the abysmal ‘Abandonfire’ and the superior ‘It’s An Illusion’, and one that sounds like Roger really has something important to say. It also marks one of the few times an acoustic guitar makes an appearance on the album, and is decidedly jangly, giving the impression that, in an ideal world, this song would have been a hit single for the drummer. As it was, Roger’s tale of forbidden (young) love still languishes among the other half-baked experiments from 1984, and was neither performed live nor given a chance in the hit parade.
YOUR KIND OF LOVER (Mercury)
• Album (Freddie): BadGuy • Compilations (Freddie): Pretender, FM Album, The Solo Collection
Starting off deceptively like a slow piano ballad, ‘Your Kind Of Lover’ quickly ascends into an explosive dance number, with a terrific piano performance from Fred Mandel. As with most of the songs on the album, the lyrics deal with Freddie’s fascination with love, and while the words in this case aren’t quite as consequential as the others, they still find the vocalist in a more upbeat mood than on, say, ‘It’s A Hard Life’. Two earlier versions eventually surfaced on The Solo Collection: the first, recorded in March 1984, features only piano and occasional drum overdubs, while the second, recorded two months later, features a more pronounced piano and slightly altered lyrics (including improvised scats where Freddie hadn’t yet finalized the words). A remix by Steve Brown, with arrangements and instrumentation by Andrew Flashman and Andrew King, was issued on the 1992 compilations The Great Pretender in the US and The Freddie Mercury Album in the UK.
PART FOUR
QUEEN LIVE
Much has been written about Queen’s live performances, and it would be foolish to attempt to expand upon what is already known and what has already been written. With that in mind, I recommend Queen Concerts (http://www.queenconcerts.com), a fantastically run website that offers details on virtually every Queen-related show from the pre-Queen years to the recent Kerry Ellis and Brian May tour. Bob Wegner’s Queen Live Site (http://queenlive.ca) goes one step further and analyzes existing bootlegs and offers a huge database of previously unseen live photographs. Also notable is Queen Live: A Concert Documentary by Greg Brooks, which took the first step by introducing fans to the previously unexplored world of Queen in the live setting.
Consequently, this section serves only as a broad overview of Queen live. Each tour has been divided into a separate entry, with a general set list given; remember that not every song was performed every night, but the songs listed in the following pages were performed throughout the respective tour, whether as a semi-regular addition or as a one-off. It should also be noted that the repertoire of Queen’s earliest concerts between 1970 and 1972, and even into 1973, are not known. Only a handful of songs are known to have been performed, whil
e – inevitably, yet regrettably – a more detailed dissection is not obtainable. With the known information, a general overview is the only option.
This section deals only with Queen’s performances as a band between 1970 and 1986; further analyses of pre-Queen bands and their performances can be found in Part One, while the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, solo concerts and the Queen + Paul Rodgers partnership are examined in Part Seven.
1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974
1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984
1970
27 JUNE TO 19 DECEMBER
Musicians: Brian May (guitar, vocals), Freddie Mercury (vocals, tambourine), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals), Mike Grose (bass guitar until 25 July), Barry Mitchell (bass guitar after 25 July)
Itinerary:
June 27: City Hall, Truro
July 12: Imperial College, London
July 18: Imperial College, London
July 25: PJ’s Club, Truro
July 31: City Hall, Truro
August 23: Imperial College, London
September 4: Swiss Cottage Private School, London
October 16: College of Estate Management, London
October 30: College of Technology, St Helens
October 31: Cavern Club, Liverpool
November 14: Ballspark College, Hertford
December 5: Shoreditch College, Egham
December 18: College of Technology, St Helens
December 19: Congregational Church Hall, St Helens
Following weeks of rehearsals, Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and Mike Grose (a friend of Roger’s) made their stage debut in Truro, the home town of Roger and Mike, on 27 June 1970, albeit under the name Smile. This show had been organized by Roger’s mother for a Red Cross charity event and, months earlier, Roger had agreed that Smile would make an appearance. With that band now defunct, and not wanting to let his mother or the charity down, Roger made good on his word and, instead, his new band performed. The band made £50 that night, a sizable sum (especially for a charity gig) in those days; still known as Smile, they made their way to the Imperial College in London, and the first official acknowledgment of the newly named band came on 18 July with an ad reading, “Queen invite you to a private showing at Imperial College.”
While the band were well aware they had to overcome several hurdles in order to establish a following, their first obstacle came not with finding an audience, but with retaining band members: Mike Grose left the band after four concerts, informing the others after the PJ’s Club gig that he was going to be staying in Truro. In a panic, the band held auditions at Imperial College for a replacement and found Barry Mitchell; Roger’s friend, Roger Crossley, had encouraged him to check the bassist out. After one rehearsal, Barry was in, becoming the second known bass guitarist in Queen. Various accounts have Barry arriving either days after Mike’s departure or in August 1970, so it’s not known who, if anyone, filled in on bass in the interim.
The first known concert with Barry took place at Imperial College, though it would be his second gig with the band, held in a private school in north London with an audience of American children whose parents all worked for the American Embassy, that made an impression on the rising stars. The children were young, certainly years below the band’s target audience, and weren’t receptive to the music Queen offered.
On 18 September, Jimi Hendrix died – a tragic blow to Freddie, who considered Hendrix his musical hero and shut down the Kensington Market stall out of respect. During rehearsals later that evening, Freddie led the band through several Hendrix songs, including ‘Voodoo Chile’. Later, at the College of Estate Management on 16 October, the missing element of Queen was in attendance; John Deacon later recalled that he was at this gig and remained nonplussed, saying, “They were all dressed in black, and the lights were very dim too, so all I could really see were four shadowy figures. They didn’t make a lasting impression on me at the time.”
The band’s set consisted of several originals but was mostly comprised of cover versions of songs by The Who, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, The Beatles, The Shadows, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Little Richard, The Everly Brothers, The Yardbirds, Gene Vincent, Ricky Nelson, The Spencer Davis Group and Led Zeppelin, among others. Three known original compositions were definitely written and performed around this time: ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ would usually open the band’s sets; ‘Liar’ would be the closer; and ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ was reportedly the first song Queen played with Mike Grose. Songs that had been written by various band members while in Smile, Wreckage and Ibex would generally round out the repertoire. At this point, Freddie remained a vocalist, and Barry Mitchell was later surprised when he was told that Freddie played piano as well as singing. Certainly, songs with piano wouldn’t be performed on stage until at least 1974. Barry later confirmed more songs in the set list at the time in an impromptu online interview on Queenzone.com: ‘Doing All Right’, ‘Great King Rat’, ‘Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll’ and ‘Hangman’.
1971
8 JANUARY TO 31 DECEMBER
Musicians: Brian May (guitar, vocals), Freddie Mercury (vocals, tambourine), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals), Barry Mitchell (bass guitar until 9 January), Doug Bogie (bass guitar, 19 and 20 February), John Deacon (bass guitar, 2 July onwards)
Itinerary:
January 8: Marquee Club, London
January 9: Technical College, Ewell
February 19: Hornsey Town Hall, London
February 20: Kingston Polytechnic, London
July 2: Surrey College, Surrey
July 11: Imperial College, London
July 17: The Gardens, Penzance
July 19: Rugby Club, Hayle
July 24: Young Farmers Club, Wadebridge
July 29: The Gardens, Penzance
July 31: City Hall, Truro
August 2: Rugby Club, Hayle
August 9: Driftwood Spars, St Agnes
August 12: Tregye Hotel, Truro
August 14: NCO’s Mess, RAF Culdrose
August 17: City Hall, Truro
August 21: Carnon Downs Festival, Tregye
October 6: Imperial College, London
December 9: Swimming Baths, Epsom
December 31: Rugby Club, Twickenham
The previous year had ended in turmoil for Queen: Barry Mitchell, who had become the band’s permanent bass guitarist, informed Brian, Roger and Freddie that he would be leaving. He wanted to settle down and marry, and realized that raising a family on a struggling musician’s salary wouldn’t work. To put it more bluntly, he later stated, “Queen were an excellent band, but we were going nowhere fast.” While Mary Austin, Freddie’s girlfriend at the time, would make an attempt to convince Barry to stay, the others felt his time had passed and were ready to find someone else.
Barry’s final concert was on 9 January 1971 at the Technical College in Ewell, where Queen supported Kevin Ayers and The Whole World Band, with Genesis also on the bill. Long-standing friend and roadie Ken Testi, who had worked with Brian and Roger while in Smile, recorded the set, and Barry was certain he had this copy in his possession, but closer inspection revealed it to be Queen’s September 1973 Golder’s Green Hippodrome radio broadcast.
The next member of the rhythm section was Doug Bogie, who had been hastily recruited but, according to legend, was fired as quickly as he had been hired. On the second and final night of his tenure within Queen, Doug became overzealous on stage and started to jump around in “a manner most incongruous”, according to Brian in As It Began. But the reality was that Doug served as a fill-in bassist and, when he started to get serious about his studies again, was asked to make a decision between Queen or classes. He chose the latter, much to the annoyance of the other band members.
The band’s hopes of finding a decent bass guitarist who wanted to become professional was quickly fading. In early 1971, John Deacon, with his friends Peter Stoddart and
Christine Farnell, was introduced to two of Christine’s friends, Brian May and Roger Taylor, while at a disco in Chelsea. Once the pleasantries were out of the way, Christine explained to John that Brian and Roger had been through many bass guitarists but had little success in holding on to one. John offered his services and, days later, turned up in a lecture hall at Imperial College to audition for Queen. He had a small bass amp (later dubbed the ‘Deaky amp’) that was initially a source of derision among the others but quickly became admired for the warm tones it produced. The band ran through ‘Son And Daughter’ a few times and the long-suffering band members had finally found the vital addition that would complete the Queen line-up for over twenty years.
At the same time, Chris Dummett, who had previously worked with Freddie in Sour Milk Sea, also auditioned that day to become a second guitarist for Queen but had the misfortune of having to play on Brian’s homemade guitar. The instrument was tailor-made for Brian’s hands and was therefore difficult to play for anyone unaccustomed to it, and Chris later recalled that his fingers “slid all over it” and that little of what he played was in time or tune. Figuring that Queen could produce enough sound with just one guitar, Freddie and Chris parted ways for good.
The band’s first concert with John Deacon was on 2 July in Surrey, though it got off to an inauspicious start when there was a disagreement between Freddie and John: the bassist had shown up to the gig wearing one of his favourite T-shirts, but Freddie was displeased with the outfit and insisted on lending John one of his own. On 17 July the band embarked upon their first proper tour, organized by Roger and based around his home county of Cornwall. The band were less than amused when some of the fliers advertised the band as ‘Roger Taylor and Queen’ or, in some cases, ‘Legendary Cornish drummer Roger Taylor’ in large letters with ‘and his band Queen’ beneath it in smaller letters.
Before the tour started, the band and their entourage – consisting of roadies Ken Testi and John Harris, various girlfriends, friends and hangers-on – set up base at Roger’s mother’s house, but when she expressed displeasure at having her home taken over, the group packed up their bags and rented a small three-bedroom cottage on the outskirts of Truro.
