KUSA — It was April 1974.
G. Brown was 19 years old, and an aspiring music writer in Colorado. And he was excited to see a British band.
“I was excited to see Mot the Hoople, one of the great hard rock English bands of the early '70s. They were booked at Regis University,” he remembered.
The other band playing that night was just an added benefit at the time.
“I went to see them, and the opening act was a band called Queen.”
Brown knew Queen was popular in England, but at the time he said they had not found commercial success in the U.S. The concert at Regis University, then known as Regis College, was the first stop on Queen’s first U.S. tour.
“They came on stage and they started a little slow,” Brown remembered. “Denver is categorized as a dusty old cow town back then and I’m not sure everyone was ready for Freddy Mercury’s satin and black fingernail polish and the theatrical presentation. His showmanship won everyone over and by the end of the set they’d conquered Denver!”
Bohemian Rhapsody, a film that celebrates the story behind Queen, topped the box office this weekend. To celebrate its connection to the band, Regis University created a video and published it to YouTube.
Brown was just beginning his journalistic career at the time of Queen’s show. For the next several decades, he covered music for the Denver Post, authored several books, and even served as the former Director of the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.
Today, he is the curator and executive director of Colorado Music Experience, a nonprofit working to preserve the music of Colorado.
Attending Queen’s first U.S. isn’t the first time Brown was a witness to history. It’s an occasional perk of his career.
“I just happened to be right place right time, that’s happened a few times,” he said. “I’ve been a pretty lucky boy to cover music here in town for so long.”