When a band named "Queen" got booed in 1974

Credits: A Queen of Magic on his website in English  Narrated by Eric (U.S. English) on Luvvoice.com

Transcript

00:00When a band named Queen got booed in 1974. In 1974, a then largely unknown Queen were

00:08booed and heckled at a music festival in Australia. Freddie Mercury told the audience,

00:14the band Queen would return after debuting their smash hit Bohemian Rhapsody just two years later.

00:20If someone would have ever booed Queen at a concert people would have lost their mind.

00:25But when they were still unknown they did get booed during the Sunbury Music Festival in

00:29Australia in 1974. Freddie Mercury had this to say, when we come back to Australia,

00:36Queen we will be the biggest band in the world. And lo and behold in 1976 when they released

00:42Bohemian Rhapsody and returned in 1976 they were well on their way. There were a few things that

00:48led to the band being booed, but if Freddie Mercury was alive and still singing today you know someone

00:54would get dropkicked for daring to boo him. Unfortunately the band didn't have much a

00:59chance to really make their case with the crowd since the DJ that introduced them wasn't all

01:03that supportive, introducing them in a way that was far less than welcoming and even going so far

01:08as berate them before they'd even started their set. That kind of inhospitable atmosphere doesn't

01:14usually make for a good show no matter how revved up a band is, and unfortunately it sounds as though

01:19Freddie and Brian were ill that day, which only made things worse. Added onto that was the fact that

01:25their lighting rig was sabotaged by local roadies after they were looked down upon as being snobs

01:30for having their own rig and their own crew. Basically they were outsiders and were treated as

01:36such. Of course how it really went kind of varies from person to person since if you ask the fans they

01:42might say that Queen did relatively well and even received calls for an encore, or that they were

01:47reviled and were told to get off the stage so that more Aussie bands could come on. From the band's

01:53point of view things were just horrible because the Aussie crews were fighting with their crew,

01:57the DJ was being as dismissive as possible to them, and in many ways was egging the crowd

02:02on to tell Queen just where they could stick their music. Apart from that the band recalls

02:07that the other bands they were playing before and after were pretty decent to them. I can only

02:13think that it had to be the unspoken code that musicians happen to know what's going on behind

02:17the scenes enough to understand what it's like to be in a strange place with a strange crowd

02:21that might not like them. The DJ could have been the kind of guy that has so much pride

02:26in his country that he doesn't think anyone else could possibly be better. In such a position

02:32one would almost think that a person would be at least somewhat worldly and a lot more

02:36enlightened. But obviously that wasn't the case. Just try to get someone to boo Queen now,

02:43people would look them like they lost their mind.