Queen's 1974 started in an inauspicious manner. In retrospect, flying to the other side of the world to play for a festival crowd who had absolutely no idea who they were may have been a touch over-ambitious, and the audience at Sunbury Rock Festival on January 27 weren't shy about making their disinterest and hostility to the quartet crystal clear: "Go back to Pommyland, ya poofters!" was one of the more politely-phrased requests from the unimpressed Melbourne crowd.
As ever, Queen styled it out - "When Queen come back to Australia we will be the biggest band in the world," Freddie Mercury declared boldly at the close of the band's late evening set - but this was hardly the profile boost management had envisaged when signing the quartet up for the 20,000 mile round trip.
Better news awaited Mercury, May, Deacon and Taylor on home soil. The group were voted runners-up to Golden Earring in the Most Promising New Act category of NME magazine's annual Readers' Poll, and took the bronze medal in the Best New Band vote in Sounds. And further good fortune lay ahead, with arguably the biggest break of their career to date.
