I See A Little Silhouetto Of A BAND: Queen assembles its own "tribute band" for 2012 tour

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Exclusive: Queen Putting Together Own Tribute Band for 2012 Tour
'If our music is being played live while we’re still alive I’d like it to be done with our stamp of approval,' says Roger Taylor

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/exclusive-queen-putting-together-own-tribute-band-for-2012-tour-20110919?link=mostpopular2



Roger Taylor performs at 'Freddie For A Day' in celebration of Freddie Mercury's birthday in London.

Queen drummer Roger Taylor was recently in his hometown when he saw a poster that caught his attention. "It said, 'Queen on stage,'" Taylor tells Rolling Stone. "I saw in the very hall where we used to play and there's just the quite bad picture of a band. There are so many of these tribute bands and then there are like orchestral concerts going on featuring music. A lot of these things are not up to scratch and so we want to do it properly."

Assembling a tribute tour worthy of an iconic act – a group that remains so popular late lead singer Freddie Mercury was honored on Google's home page a few weeks ago on what would have been his sixty-fifth birthday – is a daunting task. But Taylor thinks he's found an innovative solution to, as he puts it, "keep Queen's music alive." The drummer is enlisting the public's help, putting together an online competition to find the group for Queen Extravaganza, a 2012 trek that will feature a band playing Queen's music combined with unseen footage and a production spectacle. Beginning Monday September 19th, people who think they have what it takes to play Brian May's guitar riffs in "Sheer Heart Attack" or do their best Mercury vocals on "Bohemian Rhapsody" can upload their auditions to www.queenextravaganza.com.

It's a daring venture, but one that Taylor hopes will become a lasting way to deal with the fact that as Queen's legacy and legend has continued to grow over the last two decades, they've had to try different ways to tour after Mercury's 1991 death. The most successful were the treks they did with Paul Rodgers, but Taylor thinks those might be done.

Rolling Stone spoke with Taylor about the ongoing love for Queen's music, his own musical future, some of his favorite Queen non-hits, and what fans can expect when the Extravaganza hits the road in 2012.

[7wo7rees]

1. Excellent news! Long live the Queen!