City: | London, UK |
Venue: | The Marquee Club |
Date: | December 20, 1972 |
Apparent setlist: | Great King Rat, Son And Daughter, Jesus, Doing All Right, Ogre Battle, Keep Yourself Alive, Liar, Jailhouse Rock, Bama Lama Bama Loo |
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Queen were slotted onto this gig at the Marquee because Ronnie Beck of Feldman was friends with a promoter who booked bands at the venue. It has long been said that Queen opened for Sparks, who actually played the following night. In reality it is Queen that headlined, and a band called Fantasy was the opening act. The latter's guitarist, Peter James, recalls: "The flier for the 20th [seen above] just says two groups. If this was Queen's first Marquee gig, I'm sure it's us who played with them though I could never remember the date. It was a joint promotion gig. We had our first album out on Polydor. We went on first." These pictures were all likely taken by Doug Puddifoot. The ninth one was used for the front cover of Queen's self-titled debut album, and the tenth one was used for the insert in the final Queen album, Made In Heaven. Considering the circumstances around the latter, it was probably no coincidence that the remaining members of the band decided to bookend things by selecting a picture from the same show. Some of the concert pictures on the back cover of Queen's debut album were taken at this show, as revealed by Brian May on his blog in 2009 (although it's entirely possible that any of all of them could actually be from the show at the same venue the following April, as it was a higher profile gig. A recording of this show is reportedly collecting dust in the band's archives after being purchased from a private collector. But it may be just one of a plethora of early recordings. It has been said that Queen's first front of house sound tech, John Harris, recorded all of the early Queen gigs from day one. |