In the hot summer 1976 we were at The Manor Studios in Oxford working on a new Queen album which was gonna be called ‘A Day At The Races’. The band worked away while the crew spent most of the day lounging by the pool or playing snooker. And possibly drinking as well.

Then somebody came up with the idea of doing some shows. Two in Edinburgh, one in Cardiff and then a freebie in Hyde Park.

For the London show we used The Rolling Stones stage and the opening acts were Supercharge, Steve Hillage and Kiki Dee.

We set the stage the day before and then I took all the cymbals home and spent the evening giving them a good shine.

On the Saturday morning I got a cab to Marble Arch then walked through the park to the backstage area and boy there were a lot of people when I got there. Even though it was a huge show everyone seemed quite relaxed about it.

All the support bands were told they couldn’t use the catwalk but when Supercharge went on, Albie Donnelly, the singer, took off his coat and was wearing a white leotard underneath. He ran onto the catwalk, stuck his teeth out and shouted ‘Galileo’. Various crew members found this highly amusing but needless to say management and band didn’t see the funny side of it. They were a great funky band and if you can be bothered have a listen on Youtube or Spotify to ‘She Moved The Dishes First.’ It’s a bit naughty but very funny and that song was played on every Queen tour right up until Magic in 86.

Next was Steve Hillage. Yawn. He had a green pyramid shaped amp to ‘Get the perfect sound.’ Well that didn’t work did it. While he was playing a fight broke out down the front and in his whiny voice he said, ‘Stop fighting’ and then somebody lobbed a bottle at him. Fab.

Kiki followed and she has a beautiful voice. She had a cardboard cutout of Elton when she sang ‘Don’t go Breaking My Heart’. While Kiki was on it was time for us to start getting ready for our bit.

This was the first and only time our passes had our photos on them and I’d been on and off the stage all day, but this time the dickhead security guy didn’t believe the photo was me and wouldn’t let me through. Eventually it was sorted and I got on and got my gear sorted.

The band played great and the punters were having a good time but because of the strict curfew we weren’t allowed to do an encore, but luckily there wasn’t a riot. All in all it went well and a lot of people had a good time.” (Chris ‘Crystal’ Taylor)

QUEEN VISITS KIKI – During Kiki Dee’s appearance at the Exit Inn in Nashville, Tennessee, her pals from Queen dropped backstage to say hello. In the dressing room we find Queen tour manager Paul Prenter, Kiki, Freddie Mercury, Brian May, and Roger Taylor. [21 November 1978, photo by Bob Gruen, ‘Rock Scene’ US music magazine]