Field House fit for (a) QUEEN

When Freddie Mercury and company made their U.S. debut at Regis, they weren’t even the headline act. Or the most famous group to rock the campus.

In 1974, he wouldn’t yet have perfected that preening, powerful presence that would elevate him to icon status. But when Freddie Mercury, fronting Queen, took the stage for the first time in the United States, he would have had that voice.

So, some in the audience that April night probably would have sensed they were watching a legend in the making.

That audience, and that stage, where Queen made their United States debut 50 years ago this April, was none other than the Regis College Field House.

Queen playing the Regis Field House may seem incredible today. But, in fact, concerts were a common occurrence at the Field House from the late ‘60s through the 1970s.

Regis students and their neighbors throughout the area were treated to some big-name acts in those days: Fleetwood Mac. The Kinks. Dire Straits. Cheap Trick. Traffic. Dolly Parton. The Beach Boys performed at Ranger Day one year. And in 1968, fans paid a whopping $3 to hear the undisputed rock guitar king: Jimi Hendrix.

There were some not-so-memorable groups, too: Humble Pie, which didn’t last long but did include Peter Frampton; America, whose biggest hit involved boasting about riding around on a horse they’d neglected to name. Even Peter, Paul and Mary, best known for singing about a dragon, headlined the Field House. So did the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, whose Regis appearance, like Mott the Hoople’s, is most notable for its opening act: a young comedian named Steve Martin.

Most acts came courtesy of Barry Fey, founder of Feyline Productions, who at the time was the biggest name in rock promotions, in Colorado and much of the Rocky Mountain West.

In the early ‘70s, Rubey was an accounting and economics major, student government officer – and campus empresario. “I’d started booking bands in high school,” back in Illinois, he said. So, taking up what was becoming a campus tradition seemed natural. Besides, he said, “Accounting was boring.”

Nevertheless, when he graduated from Regis, Rubey took a job as a tax accountant at Ernst & Young. Eventually, he found his way back to entertainment, launching a career that included working in the Los Angeles area as a television executive before founding his own company, Rubey Entertainment.

Psychedelic, folk rock, glam rock – it hardly mattered and they pretty much all sold out, said John Rubey, class of ‘73. It didn’t matter that the Field House acoustics were “about what you’d expect in a basketball gym,” he said.

If Freddie Mercury, Queen and the Rocky Mountain region’s only Catholic college seem an unlikely mix, Regis leaders at the time didn’t seem too worried, Rubey said.

“It isn’t like we were booking Insane Clown Posse,” he said. Of course, the Posse didn’t mount up until 1989, but his point is nevertheless clear.

The concerts, and the film series the student government also hosted, made money “easily in the thousands” each year, Rubey said.

The only ones not making money were the students who volunteered to work the shows.

“The semis [carrying the bands’ equipment] would pull up and we got to work,” said Tony Lee, Regis class of ’81. “We were the roadies. Fifteen to 20 guys unloaded the truck, then after the show, we’d roll it all back in again.” Just like Jackson Browne described.

The first order of business, though, was always securing a tarp across the gym floor, Lee said. He recalled that the basketball coaches often hung around during concerts, worried about damage to the precious Field House hardwoods.

Not without reason, as Lee recalled. “The biggest issue was always people getting drunk and throwing up,” he said. That was particularly a concern when the concerts capped off an enduring Regis tradition. “Ranger Week always had a concert. So, people were out on the Green drinking beer in the sun all day, then they’d go into the Field House for the concert.” You don’t have to be a nursing major to guess how that turned out.

It was the concerts that drew Lee to Regis. The Dallas native attended a Jesuit high school there, and was looking for a Jesuit college, so he visited Regis. During that visit, the Kinks performed. “I went and saw the Kinks and said, ‘This is where I want to go to college.’"

He double majored in political science and communications, was editor of the Brown and Gold, and went onto a career in journalism that included a couple decades at the Wall Street Journal. But he still has his Field House concert ticket stubs, and the free T-shirts student volunteers got at each performance.

Neither Rubey nor Lee recalled any outrageous behavior by any of the acts they booked. But the legends about rock stars and their odd backstage demands –those apparently are true.

Lee recalled that The Outlaws (Boomers: remember “Green Grass and High Tides”?) demanded M&Ms, but only brown ones.

But when it comes to weird requests, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic win. “They asked for two dozen goldfish,” Lee said. Not the crackers, actual fish. Despite some concern about the fate of those fish, the students complied.

What Clinton actually did with the fish, no one could have guessed. “He had these giant platform boots. He filled the platform part with water and then put the goldfish in there and went on stage with goldfish in his boots.”

During Regis’ heyday as a concert venue, the payoff for student music fans like Rubey and Lee wasn’t just access to the concerts on campus. In those pre-Ticketmaster days, kids were known to camp out overnight, or longer, to secure seats at big-time shows. But local promoters were inclined to reward venues like Regis for hosting some of their lesser-known acts by offering on-site ticket sales to concerts by the huge acts.

“When The Who or Jethro Tull or the Rolling Stones came to town, we wanted an allocation of tickets to sell in the [campus] bookstores,” Rubey said. “If you were hosting other acts the promoters were backing, you’d get those tickets” to sell.

It didn’t hurt that there weren’t a lot of local venues back then.

And, in 1974, one of the area’s larger concert venues, Red Rocks Amphitheater, was still enforcing a ban on rock concerts. That edict was issued in 1971, after a couple thousand fans who wouldn’t take “sold out” for an answer tried to storm their way into a Jethro Tull show. The result was a full-on riot, complete with tear gas, police cars set on fire, and hundreds of arrests. Shell-shocked city leaders wouldn’t lift the ban on Red Rocks rock until 1975.

Regis was more than happy to fill some of the void. In the end, Regis student leaders learned that Barry Fey giveth, and Barry Fey taketh away.

That was true of most Field House shows, Rubey and Lee recalled, including the Queen debut.

G. Brown, former Denver Post music critic and the Doris Kearns Goodwin of Colorado rock history, records Queen’s Regis debut in his book, Colorado Rock Chronicles. At first, the Regis audience didn’t know quite what to make of this latest British invader, whose lead singer strutted around in nail polish and body-hugging satin pants. “The English newcomers were received rather quietly at first,” Brown wrote.

The delight was hearing the audience cheering. And then walking around backstage after the show and seeing everyone smiling.
- John Rubey, Regis Class of '81

During his junior year, Fey invited Lee to his office, and told him that he was opening his own concert venue – it would become the storied Rainbow Music Hall on west Colfax Avenue. Consequently, he wouldn’t be booking any more bands at Regis.

But the leaders of Regis student government didn’t give up without a fight. “We made calls all over East Coast and I finally found a promoter who said, ‘Yea I’ve got a band who will be out your way in the fall of ’80. You’ve never heard of them, but they’re really good.”

They booked them. And that unheard-of band was Dire Straits.

Angry at his former partners’ chutzpah, Fey booked a Jimmy Buffet concert in Denver for the same night. As Lee remembered it, both sold out.

Queen was still largely unknown in the United States. The band had just released their second album in the United Kingdom and were two years away from “Killer Queen,” their first U.S. hit.

The better-known group that night, the band Regis students probably had shelled out an outrageous $7.50 to see, was Mott the Hoople. That band is remembered by music fans, if they’re remembered at all, for their recording of David Bowie’s “All the Young Dudes.” But in 1974, the Hoople – for the record, a hoople is either a town in North Dakota, a basketball hoop, a drunk or a fool, depending on which website you consult — was riding high.

The website udiscovermusic.com notes that Queen’s set list that night started as that year’s Queen II album did, with an instrumental song, “Procession,” and included such still-obscure songs as “Father to Son,” “White Queen (As It Began),” and “Ogre Battle.”

The band also played their first UK hit, “Keep Yourself Alive” and covered Elvis’ “Jailhouse Rock.”

By the end of their set, Brown writes, Queen had won over the Regis crowd. “Mercury’s outrageous onstage theatrics had set a new standard for rock showmanship.”

Rubey, for his part, won’t say which of the many acts he helped bring to Regis was his favorite. “I love all my children,” he joked. “They all had their moments. But the delight was hearing the audience cheering. And then walking around backstage after the show and seeing everyone smiling.”

Rock out at Regis this September

Help celebrate the 50th anniversary of Queen's performance at Regis during Blue & Gold Weekend. On Friday, Sept. 27, we'll welcome a Queen cover band to the Field House for a live show. The concert is part of Iggy Beer Fest, which brings together some of the best craft breweries from Metro Denver and beyond, including graduates of Regis' craft brewing program. This 21+ event is open to alumni and guests, Regis students and their families. To learn more and register, please visit https://regisuniversity.tfaforms.net/11.