Headline News

Queen Honored By Hollywood Walk of Fame

Queen are to be honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. The ceremony will happen on October 18, with both Brian May and Roger Taylor in attendance. The band become the 2,207th recipients of this award. And on November 6, the band will be paid a further tribute when ‘The Queen Symphony’ is performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Composed by Tolga Kashif, this is a six-movement piece that is inspired by Queen songs. This will be released by EMI on November 4.

Here is the full press release:

Ceremony Friday October 18, 11:30 PST HOLLYWOOD CA

Legendary rock group Queen - John Deacon, Brian May, Roger Taylor and the late Freddie Mercury - will be honoured with their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Friday October 18. The star will recognise the unparalleled achievements of the band which dominated three generations of music history and follows an active campaign by the band¹s US fans.

The star has become one of the world¹s most coveted and sought after honours, recognizing a life-long contribution of both public and peer appreciation. Receiving this, Queen join the Beatles to become one of only a handful of non-US bands to earn a place on the world¹s most famous sidewalk. The 2,207th star on Hollywood Boulevard, Queen¹s star will be unveiled at 6356 Hollywood Boulevard on Friday October 18th, at 11:30am. Johnny Grant, honorary mayor of Hollywood and chairman of the Walk of Fame Committee will preside over the event, and Leron Gubler, president/CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, will speak on behalf of the organisation. Queen will be represented by Brian May and Roger Taylor.

Throughout the 70¹s Queen ruled in the US reaching number 1 in the singles chart with Crazy Little Thing called Love and Another One Bites The Dust, the latter becoming one of the biggest selling singles in American history. The band had no less than five Top Ten albums, and played to massive stadium audiences almost non-stop between 1974-1982. The legacy of the band lives on at sports stadiums across the country, where We Are The Champions and We
Will Rock You have become anthems to countless teams, and in 1992 when Bohemian Rhapsody ­ the UK¹s best single of the past 50 years (Guinness World Records) was featured in the film ŒWayne¹s World¹ a whole new generation discovered Queen, remaining loyal fans since.

Presently in the US, Queen are again setting chart records. The band's recently released Hollywood Records¹ Queen Platinum Collection deluxe triple-disc set has just hit the Billboard Top 100 at No.48, making it the highest charting multi-release album in history.

In the UK, the Platinum Collection has now achieved double platinum status and has remained in the Top 30 for 27 weeks. This week will see the release both in the UK and US of the band¹s first DVD, Queen Greatest Video Hits 1, a double disc set containing re-mastered and re-engineered versions of 22 of the band¹s videos, now heard for the first time in 5.1 digital surround sound.

The band¹s musical, We Will Rock You, which opened in London¹s West End in May, remains the UK¹s biggest selling show. The Queen/Ben Elton show has now been seen by over 500,000 theatregoers and taken more than $20million at the box office. The show has drawn standing ovations every performance since the opening, and its producers this week announced an extension of the present run through to January 2004.

In a further tribute to the band¹s extraordinary influence and musical agility, next month will see the premiere ­ both live performance and on CD - of The Queen Symphony, a new work from British composer and conductor Tolga Kashif. The Queen Symphony is a six-movement piece which explores the themes of a number of Queen¹s songs, drawing on and developing the band¹s own wide-ranging musical tastes.

Says Brian May of the symphony: "Imagine a composer of the imagination and daring of Tchaikovsky, a Holst, or a Mussorgsky. Imagine him let loose with the entire Queen catalogue of melodies, atmospheres and textures and a vast orchestra and choir. Then you will be close to imagining where this work begins. This is something monumental and quite outrageous."

The Queen Symphony will receive its world premiere in a live performance by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at London¹s Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday November 6th. The recording is released on CD by EMI Classics on November 4.

Says composer and conductor Tolga Kashif: "I think Queen¹s music will always be remembered because it¹s become part of the human consciousness. You only need to hear two notes. But it¹s these indigenous, universal melodies, I think, that will always stay with people. And the fact that there have been so many projects based on Queen¹s music is, in itself, a verification that the music of Queen is here to stay."

The Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony will be followed Friday night by a special Fan Club party at which regular Queen guest musicians Chris Thompson and Spike Edney will perform with special guests.

Source: Total Rock