Queen Extravaganza celebrate 50 years of Bohemian Rhapsody in South Wales
The official Queen tribute band Queen Extravaganza will be celebrating 50 years of the iconic hit Bohemian rhapsody on a new tour that’s coming to South Wales.
We chat to Queen Extravaganza members, drummer George Farrar from Harrogate, and bass player François-Olivier Doyon from Quebec City, Canada, about the band, working with Roger Taylor and Brian May, and the genius that is Bohemian Rhapsody.
Tell us about yourself, your background and how you got into music?
George Farrar
I started playing drums when I was about five – and weirdly the thing that got me into drumming, I was on holiday and remember a guy doing Bohemian Rhapsody on the steel drums. I’ve seen videos of it since and it was pretty awful, but clearly I didn’t think so at the time… I guess five-year-old me was easily impressed.
A few years on I got to the finals of the Young Drummer Of The Year competition, which was the moment I remember thinking I could have a decent life out of playing drums and that maybe this is a ‘real’ job.
My first tour was the Jersey Boys musical when I was about 17, then I got more into session music and became the house drummer for ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris’s studios in Harrogate. It was around that time I joined the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in Manchester – and that’s where it all really started for me.
François-Olivier Doyon
I’ve always been a huge fan of 70s and 80s pop and rock music. I started playing bass to the music my older brother and sister were listening to – bands like Depeche Mode, Duran Duran etc. Then one day, I borrowed my sister’s cassette Walkman, and the Queen Greatest Hit’s cassette was in there. I just pressed play and the first track was A Kind Of Magic.
While I was studying pop and jazz at university, I was the house bass player in a bar in Quebec City – based on the Coyote Ugly movie, with singers and dancers on the bar. I was in my mid-20s and learnt thousands of songs, and a lot of classics including Queen.
After that I spent three years touring the world with the Cavalia equestrian circus show, then started with an 80s band in Quebec City called Karma Chameleon, which also featured Queen tracks like Another One Bites The Dust – and I still now work with covers bands when I’m not touring Queen Extravaganza, I’ve got two of my own.
How long have you been in Queen Extravaganza?
George Farrar
My first tour should have been in 2020, but it was 2023 in the end – so I’m a relative newcomer in the band. But it’s brilliant!
François-Olivier Doyon
I was in from the first casting contest back in 2011/12 – and I’m the only remaining member. It’s been an amazing journey! I’m still friends with all the members and have seen them go on to some amazing work – including our original drummer Tyler Warren who is now Queen and Adam Lambert’s percussionist.
How were you recruited to the band?
George Farrar
Neil Fairclough, who is the bass player with Queen and Adam Lambert, came to RNCM to teach a masterclass, which was amazing for me, as I had been a Queen nerd since I was about 10. I absolutely bombarded him with questions, and he watched the band I was the drummer and singer in play during the class. Amazing!
About two years later, Neil called saying he had a gig I might be interested in, where they needed a drummer who could sing… Next step, I got a call from Spike Edney – who is Queen’s musical director and keyboardist and has been since around Live Aid time. I had seen him on videos for all these years and there he was calling me! He asked me to video myself playing and singing two songs – and he took them to Brian (May) and Roger (Taylor). I just thought ‘What!’
They really were, are, heroes of mine, so to think they were hearing me play was incredible. Queen and the Foo Fighters are the bands that gave me a passion for music.
François-Olivier Doyon
I was on a tour and my band mate showed me this video of a guy singing Someone To Love that was going viral and it was the most insane thing I’d ever heard – he was just like Freddie Mercury. I realised it was part of some contest or audition but didn’t think much more about it beyond being impressed at how good he was.
A few weeks later, I heard Roger Taylor was putting together an official Queen tribute band and he wanted to audition musicians, and a buddy said I should do it. I was cynical about music contests, always thought they were fixed in some way, but he persuaded me – and I’m so glad he did!
I submitted a video for the first round, then they emailed and asked for another song, and eventually they invited me to LA to audition at the Foo Fighters’ 606 Studio for Roger and his team.
It was and still is surreal – like a dream; stepping into a studio that’s owned by the Foo Fighters, then walking into the main booth and seeing the most iconic rock drummer of all time Roger Taylor, with Spike Edney and a bunch of other people.
How much involvement do Brian May and Roger Taylor have with Queen Extravaganza and what’s it like working with them?
George Farrar
Brian and Roger genuinely are hands on with Queen Extravaganza. Not necessarily day-to-day, but they come to rehearsals and check in, and have the final say on set lists and every single thing that we do as a band.
What’s great when they come, is that they are just two very normal people, who absolutely love music – that’s what I always come away with when we’ve seen them. Obviously, they are massive stars, but at the end of the day the thing that drives them is a love for music.
You get past the fact they are ‘Roger Taylor and Brian May from Queen’, and you end up chatting about their favourite bands, what drumsticks or strings they are using… Just like you would with any other really passionate musician. Honestly, if you took away the stardom, took away Queen, Roger would still be a drummer who loves to play – and that’s the same as me.
François-Olivier Doyon
When we very first started, we had two weeks rehearsing with Spike and Roger in Toronto – and had dinner together, hung out.
Then, the very first time Queen Extravaganza performed together was on American Idol, in front of 20million TV viewers, with Brian May and Roger Taylor playing with us. That was the most nerve-wracking thing you can imagine!
Over the years since, they have come to shows, and you never get blasé about that – it’s always an event when they come, and it’s always at shows which are already heightened.
But it’s always brilliant to spend time with them – the stories they have are awesome.
The tour is celebrating 50 years of Bohemian Rhapsody. What a song!
George Farrar
Every time I hear that song, I just think ‘How? How did that come out of someone’s mind?’ Half the words are made up and don’t make sense. It’s absolutely insane. But it also encapsulates everything that Queen were about and what they could do with songs.
When you look at the variety in Queen’s songs, they’re all really different, all inspired by different genres. Then Bohemian Rhapsody comes along and brings all of them, and more, into just one song.
The word ‘genius’ is thrown out a lot but that song really is it. Even the video was ground-breaking as it was one of the first times people had gone away from just a mimed performance of the single.
When we play it, as soon as you start the vocals, you get a massive cheer. It is so hard to perform live – and we are the only act out there that performs it all live which is incredible.
For me, Roger’s vocal line is particularly high and hard, so it’s a tough sing. And it’s such a big song, that every knows, you just can’t mess it up. No matter how many times you play it, you cannot relax into it at all. I always take a little moment before we start to steady myself ready to do it.
It was a really hard single for Queen to get out. The record label said it was their last chance and that they’d be dropped if it didn’t work out… Imagine that! Without that song, there wouldn’t have been the same band we know today.
François-Olivier Doyon
Bohemian Rhapsody feels like the guys, especially Freddie, went into the studio and said ‘All right, how far can we go? How far can we push this and still make something that works?’
Making something six minutes long, especially in the 70s when radio airplay was everything and tracks were 3.5minutes max… This was double the length of everything else out there. That’s a very gutsy move.
It’s like multiple songs, multiple ideas put together randomly, but it works and definitely shows every aspect of Freddie’s genius – he’s truly up there with the likes of the great classical composers, like Beethoven, Mozart and Bach.
I’m really glad we are going to be celebrating this gem of a piece of music. It is amazing.
All four members of Queen had input with the writing of it, but I can tell that the operatic opening and verses were all Freddie. But Brian must’ve had a word about the rock section as it screams his style in that part!
What can fans expect from a Queen Extravaganza show?
George Farrar
The main thing about Queen Extravaganza is that we are never recreating the band. No one is ‘being’ Freddie, or Brian, or Roger or John. It’s a tribute without the cheese and everything is live with no backing tracks. It’s a great rock concert!
The whole experience is impressive. We have the same Management team around us as Queen when they’re on the road. Some of the same crew, the same Tour Director, my drum kit is one of Roger’s. These people are the best of the best.
The level of production is the kind you won’t see anywhere else. And that’s all part of the Queen input – they go full-on with it, that’s what sets us apart.
Everything about the show is authentically done; it’s what it would have been like seeing Queen in the early days, the days before the huge stadium shows. But we have all the big hits that came with that era.
François-Olivier Doyon
We give an amazing live experience, allowing fans to hear Queen’s music the way it sounds on an album. Queen live was always different to the studio recordings, more raw and the energies were different – but we create the studio sound.
We get incredible support from Queen’s huge fanbase, and that’s because we have the blessing of Roger and Brian. They are incredibly loyal fans and they show that loyalty to us as much as to Queen themselves. There are people who travelled from the UK to North America for the very first tour back in 2012 and they still travel to see us now.
What are your favourite Queen tracks – to play and to perform?
George Farrar
Under Pressure is both for me – but I couldn’t really tell you why… There’s that beat, the vocals, and the fact Bowie was on it too! When Queen Extravaganza play it, our bass player François-Olivier sings lead and is amazing – we all take the lead on different songs, as well as our lead singers.
The audience really reacts to the song too, and I love playing it because of that reaction, it just seems to really hit.
François-Olivier Doyon
When we did the 40th anniversary tour of A Night At The Opera, playing that album from front to back, there was a tiny little gem – called Seaside Rendezvous. It’s a silly little ditty Freddie wrote, that’s so complicated musically to perform, it’s a real challenge, but I loved it because of that.
Of course, that’s a real niche choice and we don’t play it regularly. So, for a song that’s consistently there, Killer Queen is the one for me. It sums up all the aspects of Freddie Mercury’s genius. The classical inspiration, the pop/rock aspects, the vocal harmonies… It’s just like a perfect class in how to build a performance song.
Queen Extravagaza is out there representing Queen as their official tribute band, how does it feel to be part of that legacy?
George Farrar
The funny thing is, my mum used to play Queen in the car and I hated it and switched it off, and my gran was a massive Queen fan – she was at the famous Wembley concert.
At some point it must have just clicked for me and while it sounds a cliché, it really was Freddie Mercury who drew me in to them. He isn’t like pop stars now, where their lives are all over the place. There was always a kind of mystique, I loved that and the flamboyancy, the voice was insane.
As a 10-year-old, I saw clips from Live Aid and that sight of all those people, all their hands in the air for Radio Gaga – incredible.
It gets emotional for me, when we do the gigs; thinking back to being that kid, and that now my bosses are Roger and Brian. They really were the first band I was drawn to and now I’m a – very, very small – part of their legacy.
No one lives forever, and Queen Extravaganza is about creating a long-term future for the music of Queen. Being part of that is mind-blowing.
François-Olivier Doyon
It’s a huge, terrific honour to know Brian May and Roger Taylor have put their trust in me to help carry on their legacy and to keep Queen’s music alive.
Who knows what will happen when they decide to permanently stop touring though? It would be amazing to think that Queen Extravaganza would continue and be the continuation from then.
When Queen Extravaganza was first put together, people asked us when we were going to start writing music under the name Queen. That was crazy and it was never what it was about. It’s about keeping live performances going, keeping the music alive, and that’s why I’m still part of it. I hope that someone will pass on the baton with their blessing to continue forever.
Queen Extravaganza, the official Queen tribute produced by Roger Taylor and Brian May, is presented by Phil McIntyre Live.
Cardiff Utilita Arena - 24 Feb
Swansea Arena - 25 Feb
For more information visit www.queenonline.com/quex
