The Outsider Tour Live Roger Taylor

• 1 Strange Frontier (Live from London, 2021) 04:59
• 2 Tenement Funster (Live from London, 2021) 03:10
• 3 We're All Just Trying To Get By (Live from Plymouth, 2021) 03:21
• 4 A Nation Of Haircuts (Live from Guildford, 2021) 03:29
• 5 These Are The Days Of Our Lives (Live from Norwich, 2021) 04:33
• 6 Up (Live from Bournemouth, 2021) 04:39
• 7 Gangsters Are Running This World (Live from Plymouth, 2021) 04:19
• 8 Absolutely Anything (Live from Norwich, 2021) 04:34
• 9 Surrender (Live from Bournemouth, 2021) 04:20
• 10 Man On Fire (Live from London, 2021) 05:31
• 11 Rock It (Prime Jive) (Live from London, 2021) 04:57
• 12 Under Pressure (Live from London, 2021) 03:57
• 13 Say It's Not True (Live from Bexhill, 2021) 04:58
• 14 I'm In Love With My Car (Live from Guildford, 2021) 03:21
• 15 Outsider (Live from Plymouth, 2021) 03:30
• 16 More Kicks (Live from Guildford, 2021) 05:23
• 17 Foreign Sand (Live from Plymouth, 2021) 07:00
• 18 Tutti Frutti (Live from London, 2021) 04:36
• 19 A Kind Of Magic (Live from London, 2021) 06:00
• 20 Rock 'n' Roll (Live from Newcastle, 2021) 03:39
• 21 Heroes (Live from Coventry, 2021) 05:15
• 22 Radio Ga Ga (Live from Guildford, 2021) 06:11
• Total Runtime 01:41:42

Info for The Outsider Tour Live

“For some time now, we’ve all just been trying to get by. Now, it’s back to the basics, myself and some great musical pals getting back out there to play some rock.”

While it took Roger Taylor eight years, and a pandemic, to deliver his sixth and most successful solo album to date - last year’s warmly embraced Outsider - Taylor swiftly returns with another to add to his solo canon of work.

Taylor is to release a live album recorded during his hugely successful October 2021 Outsider UK tour which saw the Queen founding member perform a series of ‘intimate’ shows: “my modesty tour, I just want it to be lots of fun, very good musically”, said Taylor at the time of announcing his first live performances outside of Queen in over twenty years.

While geared towards highlighting the Outsider album – which Taylor admits being written and recorded under the Covid lockdown shadow resulted in work he describes as “slightly nostalgic and wistful” – when Taylor toured the album across the UK the emphasis was on sheer escapist pleasure.

“I just want everybody to enjoy it, get away from the depressing time we’d been having.” While for some time, as his new songs suggested, we’d all just been trying to get by, Taylor’s Outsider show delivered a roar of release and blasts of euphoric exuberance.

With a smartly gauged set list blending the new material with irresistible Queen classics, and a glorious revisiting of his 6-album strong solo catalogue, Taylor’s gigs proved a masterclass in how to thrill an audience by finding the sweet spot which marries the shock of the new and the hysteria of rock’s history.

As a member of Queen and through his well-received achievements beyond the band, Taylor has blown up musical genres, broken records and been rhapsodised for five decades. Yet these performances come across as fresh, alert and motivated.

And Taylor knows when to introduce a breather into the finely-tuned balance of drum force and power vocals and quiet reflection, delivering genuine lump in the throat moments with the solemnity of Say It’s Not True – his song addressing the terror of a positive HIV diagnosis (recorded to support the Nelson Mandela 46664 AIDS action campaign), and his Electric Fire album cut Surrender, in which he takes on the subject of domestic abuse. Foreign Sand is delivered in a simple acoustic guitar accompanied version.

With an extraordinary band featuring keyboard player Spike Edney, drummer Tyler Warren, multi-instrumentalist Tina Keys, Neil Fairclough, bass, and Christian Mendoza, guitar, plus (in London) a grand finale guest spot from one Brian May – “my brother from another mother!” hollered Taylor onstage - the tour caught a mood. And caught fire. Whether Taylor was diving into his solo body of work for a jewel like Up or revisiting regal peaks such as I’m In Love With My Car, or bringing us bang up to date with the searingly truthful Gangsters Are Running The World, this set was a masterclass in reminding us of the songwriting skill that has matched his achievements as one music’s most celebrated drummers.

Taylor’s voice, as we’d long known from his Queen contributions, was effortlessly emotive, and when he stepped back from the microphone to take a shift behind the drumkit (duelling with Tyler Warren), he brought home every kind of magic. “While I’m still able to do it, I really want to embrace it”, he’s said. “I can still clobber away, but I like to think I clobber with more subtlety these days!” And as multi-instrumentalist Tina Keys has said, “Roger’s beautiful voice seems to get better with age. He’s a great frontman too – even on stage I was starstruck! We all had such fun playing together, and I think the crowd could tell”.

“I don’t try and sound like Queen or not like Queen”, Roger has said of The Outsider songs, “I just want it to be me”. Yet by the time of the encores during this tour, life-affirming cover versions of his old pal and collaborator David Bowie’s anthem Heroes and Led Zeppelin’s raucous Rock’N’Roll were raising the roof, giving an insight into Taylor’s tastes. Along the way, Tenement Funster reminds us of when you’re “young and you’re crazy”, and another Taylor composition These Are The Days Of Our Lives exudes soul without excess sentiment. Additional peaks include the gorgeous Under Pressure, which really did burn the building down and kick our brains ‘round the floor.

Mayhem ensued when, at the London show, a verse into Little Richard’s Tutti Frutti, Brian May emerged from the wings to let rip on guitar, sticking around as Roger and band then went into the Taylor composition A Kind Of Magic. And with the crowd still giddy, Roger’s Radio Gaga closed out the evening, with everybody happily doing the time-honoured raised handclaps routine. Everyone, in that moment an insider, and life about more than just getting by.

As energetic as it is eloquent, The Outsider Tour Live album gives you a sense that absolutely anything is possible.

Roger Taylor, drums, vocals
Spike Edney, keyboards
Tina Keys, violin
Tyler Warren, persuasion, backing vocals
Neil Fairclough, bass
Christian Mendoza, guitar

Roger Taylor
Although best known for his powerhouse role in Queen, Roger Taylor is anything but a drummer confined to his kit. With rock n’roll in his veins all through his schooldays, he has always been a highly active, vocal member of Queen. He famously wrote Queen’s landmark hits Radio Ga Ga and A Kind Of Magic, and was also the first to make a solo album, 1981’s Fun In Space. To date he has released 5 solo albums, which, aside from his work with Queen, further highlighted Taylor as an musician and writer with a strong sense of identity, a wide musical perspective, and - not least of all - a man not without a sense of irony. Just consider, for instance, the lyrics to I’m In Love With My Car, his B side to Bohemian Rhapsody, and a firm audience favourite in the Queen live set.

Taylor’s active approach has not been confined to his music: when media mogul Rupert Murdoch made attempts to buy Manchester United football club, Taylor funded the club supporters in their attempts to block the sale, and historically helped them succeed.

His history in one of rock’s most famous bands begins in the late 60’s, the time when he first teamed up with Brian May, and later John Deacon and Freddie Mercury, to form Queen. But before that...

Roger Taylor was born in Kings Lynn, Norfolk, on July 26th 1949, Roger became fascinated with music in the early 50s, when his family moved to Cornwall. He learned his first instrument, the ukulele, at a tender age, and enjoyed a brief taste of things to come in a pre-teen skiffle band whose collective talent survived just two public performances, both apparently excruciating!

His music took on a different direction in 1960, when he became a rather reluctant member of the Truro Cathedral Choir -- a prerequisite of his scholarship. He taught himself the guitar around this time, but by the following year had moved over to drums.

By 1966 Roger had not only progressed to drumming in Cornwall's most popular band, the Reaction, but had also become their lead singer, with his drum kit placed -- where else? -- in the principal position, at the front of the stage. That year, the Reaction won a hotly- contested local talent contest and, according to newspaper reports, were duly "mobbed by young girls".

While maintaining his keen interest in music, Roger decided to study dentistry, and in 1967 moved to London to enrol at the London Hospital Medical College. He later studied biology, obtaining a BSc in the subject.

In 1968 Roger formed another group, Smile, with Middlesex guitar ace Brian May. Smile played sporadically over the next few years and even issued a single in the United States. By 1971, Roger had long abandoned any desire to become a dentist or a biologist, and with new additions to the line-up John Deacon and Freddie Mercury, Smile became known as Queen.

The Queen legend often refers to how Taylor and Mercury were particularly close, and spent many hours on the town together seeing bands who at that time were their heroes: The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, The Who, all of whom influenced them and helped shape the musical destiny of Queen.

Roger began writing songs for Queen from day one, and each of the band's fifteen studio albums included at least one of his compositions. History notes that all four members of Queen wrote No.1 singles: Taylor dutifully provided his with Radio Ga Ga , A Kind Of Magic and These Are The Days Of Our Lives amongst his.

1977 was the landmark year in which Queen released We Are The Champions and We Will Rock You. Roger bought a Ferrari, and became the first member of Queen to launch a solo career with the release of the single I Wanna Testify.

His solo album Fun In Space followed in 1981, and was succeeded by 1984's rock-based Strange Frontier. Both LPs reached the Top 30. In 1987 Roger formed his own band The Cross, in which after more than 20 years he finally resumed the role of lead singer. The Cross released three distinctive albums and toured extensively in the UK and Europe.

After the tragic death of Freddie Mercury, Roger returned to his solo career with 1994's Happiness?, an album on which he explored the theme of "dealing with life and looking for happiness". The success of the album prompted further tours of the UK and Italy. Then came perhaps his most potent album, Electric Fire, which clearly showed Taylor as an acute observational songwriter. Rich in contemporary reflections on life, the album was full of attention-grabbing songs tackling thought-provoking and sometimes challenging issues — national obsolescence, domestic violence, and poverty, among them. One track, People On Streets, was inspired by visits Roger made to India and the inequalities he witnessed in the fortunes of that country's vast population. Never shy to express himself, several super- rich and powerful world figures get name checked in the song.

That the Queen musical We Will Rock You came into being could be seen as something of a surprise taking into account Roger’s openly expressed view that “musicals are completely foreign to me. It’s a genre I don’t particularly like.” But after working closely with Brian and writer Ben Elton on shaping the musical, Taylor found himself deeply entrenched in developing the show, breaking the rules of musical theatre and taking on the role – along with Brian - as musical supervisor, not only for the first production in London, but for each of the subsequent productions throughout the world. To date, local productions of the show have reached 8 further countries.

At the same time as setting up We Will Rock You, Roger and Brian played a central part in the formation of the Nelson Mandela 46664 charity, performing at the first two South Africa concerts, and providing several new songs to the 46664 album which saw them collaborate with the likes of Bono, Anastacia, Dave Stewart and Beyonce. Roger penned two new songs for the project, Say It’s Not True, a song about finding out you’re HIV positive, and Invincible Hope, based on the writings of Nelson Mandela and actually featuring the voice of Mandela reading phases from his autobiography.

In 2005, after an accidental encounter with former Free singer Paul Rodgers, Roger and Brian felt the time was right to put Queen back on the road. Billed as Queen + Paul Rodgers, Roger and Brian tested the water with a handpicked set of European dates. Such was the momentum built up over the six week European tour, a US tour was booked to follow, which saw Roger and Brian return to the USA to play for the first time in more than 20 years. The impact of the return to the road was summed up in a review of is closing night in Vancouver: “the night that arena rock officially made its comeback”.

Roger returned to his solo career in late 2009 with the release of the single The Unblinking Eye. A new solo album emerged in 2013, the critically acclaimed Fun On Earth, plus a comprehensive box set called The Lot which covered all his solo material and work with The Cross.

Roger also oversees and produces The Queen Extravaganza, the official Queen Tribute act. The Queen Extravaganza is a spectacular touring concert show designed to take the music and live experience of Queen and bring it to generations of fans.

This album contains no booklet.