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1974

The year starts with their first trip outside of Europe and an appearance at the Sunbury Music Festival in Australia. Although the band headline the event on 2nd February, their appearance the next day is cancelled.

In March the band commence a UK tour to promote their new album Queen II, and then embark on their first trip to the USA. Once again they play support band to Mott The Hoople on a four week tour beginning in April. The band pay more attention to their look on stage and employ the services of Zandra Rhodes to design some of their costumes.

Queen's slot comes to an abrupt halt when Brian collapses from hepatitis after the New York show on 11th May, and fly home for Brian to recover.

The band are soon back on the road and commence their second tour as the headlining act, with nineteen concerts at eighteen different venues around the UK. The band ‘Hustler’ are the support band, and the setlist contains much of the material from the new album Sheer Heart Attack.

With more money to invest in a new stage show, the band wear new costumes for this tour and add an additional lighting rig complete with state of the art stage effects.

To conclude Queen’s touring for the year they embark on a European tour consisting of ten shows in six countries, performed over a two and a half week period. The tour would have been longer had it not been for the truck transporting their equipment being involved in an accident, and not being able to reach the remaining scheduled venues.

Text taken from the forthcoming revised and updated edition of Queen Live: A Concert Documentary