HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 24: Brian May of Queen performs onstage during the 91st Annual Academy Awards at Dolby Theatre on February 24, 2019 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images).
It’s great news that Brian May found an audio cassette of one of the earliest Queen shows ever played. But it’s bad news for us fans that we aren’t allowed to hear it yet. No bueno! It’s likely from June 1970, just a few weeks before their real first concert in July at Imperial College in London (where Brian May had attended).
May says, “We’re always looking at finding stuff that is historically important. And this one tape that cropped up very recently which I am excited about, which is one of the first gigs we played in a lecture theatre at Imperial College. I didn’t even know I had the cassette.” May adds, “We were very unformed [on the tape]. Hearing Freddie [Mercury] at that point in his development is fascinating. He had all the will and charisma and passion, but he didn’t have the opportunity to harness that voice yet. Which makes me hesitate a little bit, because I’m not sure Freddie would be that happy hearing himself at this stage. But strangely, if he were alive and sitting here at this moment, he’d probably be the same as me: ‘Oh darling, we were kids.’” Read the full story from ultimateclassicrock.com here.