Graphite and Queen at Tregye

Last night I spoke with David Hook, guitarist and founder of Graphite who played at Tregye in 1971 with Queen. Thanks David if you're reading this now. Here was part of his recollection of the day:

'I don't really remember much about Queen's set. Which is extraodinary given how successful they later came, and how amazing they were live later. But then they seemed rather ordinary. I remember thinking they were just another heavy rock band and there were loads of them around then. But I do remember them off stage.

The dressing room was a great big room in the hotel - one of the big lounges - and all the bands shared it. I'd met Arthur Brown and Hawkwind before as I was entertainments secretary at Reading (I'd also worked as a booker at Clearwater Productions and Hawkwind and Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come were 2 of our acts), and actually he had been at Reading as an undergraduate so we had lots in common. Anyway Arthur was the same off stage as he was on it. Larger than life. And he would do these amazing singing exercises. Scales and so on.


But in the dressing room Queen too had a real presence, a real aura. They weren't casual like the rest of us hippies. They seemed more arty. And they had hangers on, which perhaps helped give them aura too. I can't remember what they were wearing but they reminded me a bit of Roxy Music, who I met later. I remember thinking when I saw Roxy that this was the end of the hippy era'.