Killer Queen to perform at MGM Springfield’s Aria Ballroom

SPRINGFIELD, MA. (WGGB/WSHM) - Killer Queen, a tribute band to the world-famous Queen, is making a long-awaited return to MGM Springfield this weekend. The cover band formed over two decades ago. While the members were studying in London, they bonded over their love for music.

“It was all of our childhood influences sort of there in a great big sort of strew,” said Patrick Myers, lead singer of Killer Queen.

The UK-based Queen cover band, featuring Myers, got their start back in 1993 at London University, performing in front of thousands of people and immediately following in the footsteps of the original band that first performed there two decades earlier.

Myers told Western Mass News as fate would have it, the band that was supposed to perform in their slot that night had dropped out last minute and the school was on the hunt for a student band to fill the spot.

“Suddenly, a photograph of me popped up on some guy’s desk and he said ‘Yup, okay,’” Myers noted.

Right from their very first show, Killer Queen was pushed into a supreme headline spot, something Myers described as a Cinderella moment leading to a university tour, gigs at the most prestigious clubs in London, and eventually landing them abroad filling arenas and raking in awards becoming regulars at venues like Red Rocks in Colorado.

However, before they were selling out arenas, the members of Killer Queen were just fans. Myers reminisced on the moment he first fell in love with Queen. While looking for a band as magical as the Beatles, a schoolmate opened him up to a whole new world of rock and roll.

“He put his headphones on my ears on a school trip. We were on for hours on this bus and it was Queen’s greatest hits and I was absolutely amazed. It felt like it was the best thing I ever heard,” Myers added.

Unfortunately, Queen stopped touring as soon as Myers and his schoolmates became old enough to attend a show. He later found out it was because lead singer, Freddie Mercury, was diagnosed with AIDS and while in college, they got the sad news that Freddie had passed away.

“Everyone in that residence went into a collective grief together. We were playing their music through windows and up and down the corridors. You could hear Queen music all the time and we were all devastated because we all though someday we’d see Queen live,” Myers explained.

Since their dreams of hearing the original Queen live were crushed, they found another way to experience the music: performing the songs themselves.

“We started singing songs to each other. We had this battered old piano in a laundry room, so while we were queuing up to use the washing machine, we’d sing Queen songs to each other,” Myers added.

From those humble beginnings to today, Killer Queen’s mission remains the same: to make anyone who missed Queen decades earlier feel like they’re back in time at one of the band’s iconic shows and after all this time, the thing that remains dear to Myers heart are the songs and getting to know them inside and out.

“…And how much joy and happiness and ecstasy they can give people when you perform them,” Myers said.

Myers assured fans at MGM Springfield this Sunday can expect tons of fun, spectacular costumes, and a dazzling set.

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