Awards

PRS to present Heritage Award to Queen

By | Published on Thursday 21 February 2013

Queen

Collecting society PRS For Music will next month present another one of its Heritage Awards, this time to the second best Queen tribute act of them all, Queen, aka Brian May and Roger Taylor.

As is customary, the plaque will be unveiled at a location significant to the band’s early career, in this case London’s Imperial College, where May and Taylor first met, and where the rock pop outfit subsequently played their first ever “proper” gig in 1970.

May told CMU: “The first proper gig we did was at Imperial College in the Union Hall. I remember it very distinctly because I’d seen all sorts of people playing in there. I’d been part of the entertainment committee and we booked a group every Saturday night in those days. People like Spooky Tooth and Steamhammer! We booked Jimi Hendrix too. So for us it was a dream come true to actually play on that stage. It used to get packed in there so it was a major stepping stone for us”.

Confirming that the next PRS Heritage Award would go to Queen, PRS Chair Guy Fletcher added: “Loved by millions the world over, they were often thought of as the People’s Band. Queen’s songwriting originality combined musicianship with real life emotion sustaining generations of dedicated fans. It will be an enormous honour to present Brian and Roger with the PRS For Music Heritage Award at such a fine institution”.

While Paul Beaumont, the current President of Imperial College’s Students’ Union, said: “We’re very proud of Imperial College Union’s musical past, including the small role we played in the Queen story. It’s a privilege to host a plaque commemorating the band’s first London performance here and to welcome them back here today”.



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