| City: | London, England |
| Venue: | Forest Hill Hospital |
| Date: | March 24, 1972 |
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One of the few people who saw Queen's potential in this period was club DJ and A&R representative John Anthony (who had produced one of Smile's recording sessions in 1969, which yielded their only single, "Earth"). Queen had invited Anthony and producer Roy Thomas Baker to the De Lane Lea sessions the previous December, both of whom liked "Keep Yourself Alive." Anthony also attended many of their early shows and would end up helping them get signed with Trident Audio Productions in the spring, with Trident co-owner Barry Sheffield attending this show, a dance at a hospital, on Anthony's recommendation and being duly impressed with what he saw and heard. Anthony and Baker would co-produce the band's eponymous debut album in the coming months. Norman Sheffield at Trident soon offered the band a deal under Neptune Productions (a subsidiary of Trident), a recording and management arrangement whereby the band were granted free studio time, with the contract stipulating that Trident would receive all future royalties with the band members only receiving weekly allowances, which would become a problem down the line. But for now the band would enjoy the privilege of recording at Trident Studios, a place normally inhabited by major artists like Elton John and David Bowie, and by April they got to work making their first album. Once it was recorded, the plan was for Trident to seek distribution and publishing deals for the band. By September each band member received a salary from Trident of £20 per week. Decades later Brian May recalled in a conversation with Rick Wakeman how he wanted to stay away from playing in pubs, because back when Smile played them nobody actually listened to the band. Instead, Queen would rehearse for a few months and then play a gig at a university lecture theatre like this one. They'd invite a hundred friends, and a few people from record companies - most of whom would never show up, and if they did, they didn't think much of the band. In a 1977 interview Roger Taylor said much of 1972 was spent "giving free concerts for our friends, playing the odd gig that we could scratch," as their debut album had been completed part way through the year. "The money was very small, and it was very much just subsistence level." And more recently he stated that many record company reps came to this gig, which led to much "wheeling and dealing" on their way to securing that coveted record deal. But that wouldn't come to fruition until the following year. Brian later stated how they spent a couple weeks in a rehearsal space in the middle of nowhere, to finish writing and rehearsing the music for their album with no distractions so that they'd "be ready to go straight into the studio to record it." This was likely in late March or early April. The band's musical activity for the rest of the year consisted of recording their album mostly at odd hours of the night (finishing on or around July 30, save for Keep Yourself Alive which would later be re-recorded) and playing only five more gigs. The band members otherwise spent their time studying or working their respective jobs (or both). |