KWEEN HISTORY

Photo (c) 1997 by Akinori Matsui
An Interview by Carlton TV in front of Freddie's house

November 1991, after the tragic death of Freddie Mercury...

While huge Freddie Mercury tribute concert was held at Wembley Stadium in UK, there was no tribute event held in Japan, the country that first recognized Queen as super rock band. KWEEN, feeling sad that no such event was held in Japan, organized "Freddie Mercury tribute, KWEEN Concert for AIDS Awareness '92" in Tokyo on 27 December 1992, slightly over one year after Freddie's death. Though KWEEN then had no name, the hall was packed with 400 enthusiastic QUEEN fans. Since then, KWEEN's activities became more active. KWEEN held many gigs and started to appear on Japanese TV programmes. KWEEN's activities were somehow reported to Brian May, and in 1995, KWEEN receives a letter from Brian praising its live performances.

In 1996, KWEEN made a debut from Columbia Entertainment with its original tunes and QUEEN cover tunes. In 1997, KWEEN embarked upon their first tour to London, UK. KWEEN had record audience at some venues, appeared on many magazines and TV programmes in UK. The most notable performance on TV in UK was "Big Breakfast", UK's most-watched morning TV show. It was the first time for Japanese musician to play live on British television. In the late 1990s, KWEEN started to play in large rock festivals in Japan including Rising Sun Rock Festival, Peaceful Love Rock Festival and Summer Sonic, appealing audience of all age with QUEEN music.

In 2005 tour, KWEEN held gigs on various theme changing the lighting system, arrangement of songs and costume. The 70s live and 80s live were released an long-waited KWEEN Live albums. Also during 2005, KWEEN supported the promotion of the musical "We Will Rock You" by appearing many TV/radio shows and magazien interviews and such.

QUEEN on CD was famous for its complex arrangement and chorus work.  QUEEN's live, on the other hand, was straight rock'n roll show with amazing lighting. QUEEN really had two significant charm in that sense. KWEEN focuses on re-producing QUEEN's live performances. It uses the same instruments as much as realistically possible and hired a lighting engineer who was one of the local staffs of QUEEN live. Not only KWEEN re-produces QUEEN's live performance, but with their rich live performance experience, it also includes in the list the songs that were never played by QUEEN when Freddie was alive. KWEEN is THE ULTIMATE TRIBUTE BAND that rocks people of all ages with splended tunes written by QUEEN. 

KWEEN History

(c) 1992-2007 by KWEEN, All Rights Reserved.