Queen Find Early Gig Footage, Don’t Know What to Do With It

Getting to hear clips from a band's early days is always interesting, but especially when it's a band who went on to become as massive as Queen has. Brian May told Classic Rock that he's found some footage from one of their earliest gigs, but that they don't know what to do with it.

The show was performed at a lecture theater at London's Imperial College, and May didn't even realize he had it on tape.

"We were very unformed," May described of the performance tape. "Hearing Freddie [Mercury] at that point in his development is fascinating. He had all the will and charisma and passion, but he didn't have the opportunity to harness that voice yet."

"Which makes me hesitate a little bit, because I'm not sure Freddie would be that happy hearing himself at this stage," the guitarist continued. "But strangely, if he were alive and sitting here at this moment, he'd probably be the same as me — ‘Oh darling, we were kids.’"

The band are currently contemplating what they'd like to do with the footage.

"A few years ago we'd have felt very protective and thought, ‘Nobody should hear this, because we’re very rough.’ But now, in the position that we are in our lives, we feel forgiving. We're not ashamed of where we were at that time. It was us against the world.”

Queen played at the London Imperial College location a few times around 1970. It's actually the first London venue they performed in, when Mike Grose was still playing the bass.

Perhaps the tape will see the light of day sooner or later.