The one tour Brian May called “the best thing” for Queen
It’s hard to think of a time when Queen wasn’t one of the biggest rock and roll bands of all time.
Although Freddie Mercury was born to be a star from the minute he got onstage, there was a moment where Brian May and Roger Taylor were slogging it out with their own band, Smile, before Mercury managed to summon up the courage to get on the mic for the first time. And while lightning might have struck when they first began playing together, May knew that they had a long road ahead of them before the rest of the world got to see what they had to offer.
But on their debut, all the pieces for Queen’s sound are already there. ‘Keep Yourself There’ is one of the greatest examples of what they could do, from the catchy guitar riff to the layers upon layers of vocal harmonies, but even as camp as they were, they needed a few more chances before becoming the biggest band in the world. This was the height of glam, and they needed a few more songs under their belt to deliver the goods.
When you look at the other massive bands out at the time, Mott the Hoople was one of the best places they could have hoped to start when they began touring the country. Mott the Hoople was already becoming a sensation thanks to David Bowie’s ‘All The Young Dudes’, and while Queen were happy to get any slot they could, their touring mates probably didn’t know what they had got themselves into when they started playing.
Mercury was just discovering his inner rock and roll god, and while the band was still pretty green, May felt that they couldn’t have asked for more when touring with Mott the Hoople, saying, “The first proper gig we had as Queen, we supported Mott The Hoople which was a brilliant stroke – the best thing that could possibly have happened to us. I mean, there was a sort of reputation building up, but what we did was go out with Mott The Hoople who had the proper audience already there. You know, they’d worked on their audience, they had it down, and anyone who was into state-of-the-art rock’n’roll at the time would have been there.”
And while Ian Hunter was gracious enough to come out onstage with them during their performances of ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ and ‘Liar’, there was a good chance that he was seeing exactly what all the rest of us were. They didn’t have the massive singles like ‘Killer Queen’ yet, but they had already started a small musical fire, and when they came out with Sheer Heart Attack, it was like they threw a bucket of kerosene on that fire.
That’s not to say that they didn’t have a few lucky breaks during their time together, either. They had already gone through some of the worst business dealings that they could have possibly asked for when their manager made off with all their money, but after their performance on Top of the Pops, it’s not like they had to worry about sinking like a stone. The rock royals had carved out their own place, and when they hit the festival circuit, Mercury was just comfortable enough to own the world’s stage.
But when you look at the way that the band reacted with the audience, a lot of it came from the lessons that they learned in those early Mott the Hoople days. Their touring mates had a bluesy edge to them that served them well whenever they were playing massive theatres or small clubs, and when you look at Mercury’s performance at Live Aid, he had the same kind of stage presence that made every one of his moves look like something you’d see from your average bar band.
So while those early shows with Mott the Hoople only gave them an audience, Queen did everything they could to earn their stripes as one of the greatest live bands that had ever been. Their music was the most important thing whenever they made records, but there was a certain magic that took over every single time those houselights came on.
