Queen Zee album launch: Jacaranda Phase One, Liverpool

Queen Zee album launch

Queen Zee launched their debut album and Getintothis’ Banjo was there to give in to the hype and witness an early contender for gig of the year.

It here – Zee day! After much anticipation and impatient waiting, Queen Zee’s debut album was finally released this Friday.

And what an album it is. Everything about it is perfect, everything about it is right. At the risk of repeating ourselves, Queen Zee are the most important band in the world right now.

At a time when gender roles and sexuality definitions are being challenged and put under a microscope, Queen Zee effortlessly sum up everything that is good and positive about such a thing.

As part of their album launch, Queen Zee have put on a free, all ages Sunday afternoon gig where they will play the album and chat to fans. And never has the term ‘all ages’ been so apt. A quick look around Phase One and we can see ages from a young girl with a cuddly toy that is nearly as big as she is to more grizzled, greying gig veterans.

Clearly Queen Zee’s appeal knows no boundaries.

As ever though, dotted amongst the crowd are pockets of Queen Core kids, looking like the band and again giving the impression that something is going on here, something new is taking shape,

At four o’clock on this Sunday afternoon, Queen Zee take to the stage for what is the best gig we have ever seen them do. Is it too early to declare gig of the year?

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They power through the album, with the likes of Boy and Sissy Fists shaking our heads and feet.

Half way through, singer Zena Davine asks the audience to form a circle at the front. This they do without question or hesitation and, when we are thinking this might be the start to a circle of death type moshpit, we are told that this is to be a circle of love.

We are told to find a partner in the crowd and, quite simply, dance with them. To show us how, Davine and bass player Frank Flag take to the dance floor and start us up. Needing little in the way of encouragement, the newly created circle fills up with dancing couples and smiling faces.

This image, out of all the things we see tonight, best sums up Queen Zee.

40 minutes of this and they are done. And this again is perfect – no fat, no waste. Say what you need to say and get off.

Mere minutes later the band are by the merchandise stall, signing, chatting and engaging with their fans, and there they stay until their wish to chat to everybody present has surely been granted.

Queen Zee Interview: nonsense poetry, Queen Core and irritating people https://t.co/Xh4Sbt0WUt pic.twitter.com/mzhf6EBGrk

— GetintothisHQ (@GetintothisHQ) February 1, 2019

As for Getintothis, well, we got our CD signed and, if we’re being honest, had a bit of a fanboy moment.

In a sideline of what we shall laughingly call being a music journalist we have been lucky enough to get to speak to quite a few of our heroes over the years and we maybe becoming quite hardened to it. A chat with John Lydon? Sure, no problem. Want to speak to Peter Hook? Of course, looking forward to it.

But for a moment there, meeting Queen Zee made us a little nervous. Their friendliness and all round loveliness soon put us at our ease, but surely this sort of thing doesn’t happen to ordinary folks. And if it does, some part of our precognitive brain must recognise that talking to Queen Zee now is something we can brag about later to impress people, like meeting Freddie Mercury when he was still in Ibex, or Sex Pistols when they were unknown outside of their own circle of friends.

The best advice we could give you is to join in the hype, join in the fun. Give yourself over to Queen Zee mind body and soul.

It will happen anyway, so you might as well do it now and wring some extra fun out of the whole thing.

Images by Getintothis’ Peter Goodbody