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Authors: Mark Blake
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us in make-up. We looked terrible.’ Newly groomed, the band drove to the Olympia, parked their cars in a side street and started unloading their gear.
Inside the arena, they were told that they would be going on ‘very late’. The band set up camp in the artists-only gallery overlooking the stages. The hours dragged by as they watched interminable soundchecks and, later, sets by The Move and Pink Floyd. For a change of scene, they de-camped to Olympia canteen, where they again spotted Jimi Hendrix. ‘I remember thinking, “Oh, we are going up in the world,”’ says John Garnham, continuing, ‘At 1 a.m., we were about to go on, when this guy rushed over and said, “No, no, no … So it was back to waiting for another few hours.’ In the end, depending which of the band members is telling the story, 1984 went onstage sometime between 4.30 and 6 a.m. on 23 December. ‘Everyone was drunk or stoned and lying around, and we bounced on,’ said Tim Staffell. ‘I think they’d had enough by then,’ adds John. ‘We just plugged in and hoped for the best, and, thankfully, didn’t get booed off.’ ‘Because we were an unsigned band and it wouldn’t cost them anything, I think a snippet of our set was shown on TV,’ recalls Dave Dilloway. ‘Looking back, it was mediocre but very loud.’
There was worse to come. When the band returned to the dressing room, they discovered their money had been stolen. Then, when they left the Olympia, re-emerging into a frozen December morning after some fifteen hours inside, they found their cars had been towed away. According to Dave Dilloway, theband members were still in their garish stage clothes ‘all tarted up in make-up’, making the four-mile hike to the police compound in Hammersmith even more uncomfortable. Having paid to retrieve their vehicles, the exhausted band members spent the rest of the day in a haze, trying to buy last-minute Christmas presents. While the Olympia show had been their most prestigious gig yet, it was, in its own way, the beginning of the end.
Just a few months into the New Year, Brian May quit 1984. In the final year of his course, he felt compelled to knuckle down to his studies. It was an amicable decision. ‘We weren’t out to change the world,’ shrugs Dave Dilloway, ‘and I didn’t know that Brian May wanted to set the world on fire.’ The band pressed on with Tim stepping up as lead guitarist and vocalist, but before long, he would be enticed back into playing music with Brian.
Away from the stage and the recording studios, another even more important connection had been made. One of Staffell’s new chums from Ealing art college had become a regular at 1984 gigs. ‘He was Tim’s mate and he was mad about Hendrix. He just loved the scene,’ explains Dave Dilloway. ‘He used to get into the gigs for free by being our roadie. He never asked to sing or play so I had no idea he was even musical.’ Their roadie’s name was Freddie Bulsara.
Former Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum likes to tell a story about Queen’s Roger Taylor. In the late 1970s, the fifteen-year-old Sorum and his friends would while away their evenings on Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip. One night, the gang saw a Rolls-Royce pull up outside a Hollywood nightclub. The car door opened and Roger Taylor emerged. The drummer was wearing black sunglasses, a snow-white suit and was managing to hold a glass of bubbly in one hand while a beautiful girl hung off the other. From that moment on, said Sorum, ‘I wanted to be Roger Taylor.’
Fast forward to 2005 and Taylor is sitting in the deserted upstairs bar of the Dominion Theatre, where the Queen musical We Will Rock You is halfway through its third year in London’s West End. He strokes his white goatee and offers a rather bashful smile. ‘I alwaysfelt it was my job to have a good time,’ he nods, then laughs. ‘Oh, God, am I a cliché?’ Queen, the band, are about to go on tour again for the first
Inside the arena, they were told that they would be going on ‘very late’. The band set up camp in the artists-only gallery overlooking the stages. The hours dragged by as they watched interminable soundchecks and, later, sets by The Move and Pink Floyd. For a change of scene, they de-camped to Olympia canteen, where they again spotted Jimi Hendrix. ‘I remember thinking, “Oh, we are going up in the world,”’ says John Garnham, continuing, ‘At 1 a.m., we were about to go on, when this guy rushed over and said, “No, no, no … So it was back to waiting for another few hours.’ In the end, depending which of the band members is telling the story, 1984 went onstage sometime between 4.30 and 6 a.m. on 23 December. ‘Everyone was drunk or stoned and lying around, and we bounced on,’ said Tim Staffell. ‘I think they’d had enough by then,’ adds John. ‘We just plugged in and hoped for the best, and, thankfully, didn’t get booed off.’ ‘Because we were an unsigned band and it wouldn’t cost them anything, I think a snippet of our set was shown on TV,’ recalls Dave Dilloway. ‘Looking back, it was mediocre but very loud.’
There was worse to come. When the band returned to the dressing room, they discovered their money had been stolen. Then, when they left the Olympia, re-emerging into a frozen December morning after some fifteen hours inside, they found their cars had been towed away. According to Dave Dilloway, theband members were still in their garish stage clothes ‘all tarted up in make-up’, making the four-mile hike to the police compound in Hammersmith even more uncomfortable. Having paid to retrieve their vehicles, the exhausted band members spent the rest of the day in a haze, trying to buy last-minute Christmas presents. While the Olympia show had been their most prestigious gig yet, it was, in its own way, the beginning of the end.
Just a few months into the New Year, Brian May quit 1984. In the final year of his course, he felt compelled to knuckle down to his studies. It was an amicable decision. ‘We weren’t out to change the world,’ shrugs Dave Dilloway, ‘and I didn’t know that Brian May wanted to set the world on fire.’ The band pressed on with Tim stepping up as lead guitarist and vocalist, but before long, he would be enticed back into playing music with Brian.
Away from the stage and the recording studios, another even more important connection had been made. One of Staffell’s new chums from Ealing art college had become a regular at 1984 gigs. ‘He was Tim’s mate and he was mad about Hendrix. He just loved the scene,’ explains Dave Dilloway. ‘He used to get into the gigs for free by being our roadie. He never asked to sing or play so I had no idea he was even musical.’ Their roadie’s name was Freddie Bulsara.
Former Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum likes to tell a story about Queen’s Roger Taylor. In the late 1970s, the fifteen-year-old Sorum and his friends would while away their evenings on Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip. One night, the gang saw a Rolls-Royce pull up outside a Hollywood nightclub. The car door opened and Roger Taylor emerged. The drummer was wearing black sunglasses, a snow-white suit and was managing to hold a glass of bubbly in one hand while a beautiful girl hung off the other. From that moment on, said Sorum, ‘I wanted to be Roger Taylor.’
Fast forward to 2005 and Taylor is sitting in the deserted upstairs bar of the Dominion Theatre, where the Queen musical We Will Rock You is halfway through its third year in London’s West End. He strokes his white goatee and offers a rather bashful smile. ‘I alwaysfelt it was my job to have a good time,’ he nods, then laughs. ‘Oh, God, am I a cliché?’ Queen, the band, are about to go on tour again for the first
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