They will rock you Blunt’s brilliant rendition sends the Mercury rising
THE Killer Queen Experience is coming to Townsville, promising an authentic and exciting experience for fans of Queen and Freddie Mercury young and old.
Performer and impersonator John Blunt plays Mercury, and will show off his uncanny resemblance to the Queen icon in Townsville next week.
“Townsville could be shaping up at the moment to be the highlight of our careers,” he said.
“We’ve played everywhere, in Singapore, Norway, India, Japan, all over the country, I’m about to go off to America, but we’ve just got a ticket read and this could be the biggest show we’ve ever done roof in Australia.
“We’re Queenslanders, and we can’t wait. We’ve got lots of family and friends up there.
“We’re just so excited, we love Townsville and to have sold this many tickets, this will be one of the crowning jewels in our careers.”
Blunt said he first discovered his talent for impersonating Freddie Mercury close to 20 years ago.
“I worked at Movie World, I was there from about 1999 to 2001,” he said.
“They basically employed me to do lots of different singing characters, Elvis, Roy Orbison, lots of generic things — of course, I did Freddie Mercury as well. under one
“After that I wasn’t confident enough to do a full tribute to Freddie or Queen. So, I thought I’d break it up and I did Elvis for the first half of a show and for the second half I did Freddie Mercury.
“We called it the King and Queen Show. That’s where it all started.”
Blunt said he discovered fierce competition in the world of Elvis Presley impersonations, so he turned his show into a full tribute to Freddie Mercury.
Since then, he has toured around the world and has played Mercury in the ITV biopic Who Wants To Live Forever.
“They cast throughout Europe and America for someone who could fit the bill,” he said.
“I got a Facebook message asking if I would be interested in doing a Skype screen test for the producers and the director of this documentary, and I said of course.
“I was doing cruise ships at the time. I came back, landed in Darling Harbour, my manager rang me and said ‘you’re going to London’.
“I was the very first person to play Freddie Mercury on film, and I’ve even got a mention on his Wikipedia page. It’s a bit weird, wonderful though, very wonderful.
“On film I had to develop a different voice, mannerisms are all different, he was a very shy person, and I had to snog a lot of guys as well so that was interesting.”
Blunt said The Killer Queen Experience was set to bring one big party to Townsville.
“Our goal is to make everybody happy and have a party with us,” he said.
“We basically play all the greatest hits, it’s two hours of memories.
“We do lots of different costume changes, we try to mimic some of the costumes they wore throughout the years, they were very flamboyant. It really was an expression of (Mercury’s) creativity.” >>Catch the Killer Queen show at the Townsville
Entertainment and Convention Centre on Friday, August 16. Visit www.tecc.net.au for tickets.