Queen’s Roger Taylor recounted how his mother organised the band’s first concert to raise funds for the British Red Cross.
The Truro concert in June 1970 was Taylor’s first performance on drums, with Brian May on guitar and Freddie Mercury on vocals.
Taylor also recounted how the band honed their signature polyphonic sound whilst rehearsing in a cave on Cornwall Beach, because they liked the ‘rich, full sound’.
The musician spoke about this ahead of the release of his new solo album, *Violence in a Beautiful World*.
The Truro concert was Mercury’s first live performance with Taylor and May. It was there that he announced the band’s new name — Queen.
The set list included songs they had written themselves, in particular […]. They then moved to Truro, which, of course, is in the heart of Cornwall (Ed.) and is effectively its capital. It was a brilliant place to grow up. Cornwall is beautiful.
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At the age of 18, Roger Taylor went to London to study dentistry, but later switched to biology. Yet his heart lay in music.
He responded to an advert at college seeking a drummer for the band Smile, which already included Brian May.
In the spring of 1970, Smile split up, but the band was already due to perform at Truro Town Hall, now known as the Hall for Cornwall.
After Freddie Mercury joined the band, Smile became Queen, and the Truro concert was their debut live performance.
“We were apparently paid 50 pounds – that was a huge sum at the time.”
“We found out that he’d put his trousers under his mattress and ironed them whilst he slept.”
According to Taylor, Freddie suggested calling the band Queen.
“We were discussing daft names. One of them was Build Your Own Boat, which is probably a bit of a progressive name.”
“There were a few other options, you know. But Queen is a good name. It’s simple, easy to remember and sounds straightforward.”
Queen’s signature polyphony
Taylor recalls practising vocals with May and Mercury in the caves at Chapel Port Beach in St Agnes.
‘I think we sang in the caves because of the good reverberation, because of the echo. So the sound seemed bigger,’ he said.
— It must have been lovely to sing there. It was like singing in a big church or something like that. The sound came from all around.
Taylor said: ‘We performed wherever people were willing to give us a chance.’
“We all lived in a small, cosy cottage in the tiny village of Devoren. Every morning I’d get up and go to work on the farm. It was really hard going, but we were broke, we had nothing, so it wasn’t easy.”
Taylor said he still has a house on the River Halford in Cornwall, and his son Rufus, the drummer with The Darkness, runs a pub on the other side.
“I like going there. But I don’t go there often enough,” he said.