HE didn't know it at the time, but Giles Taylor began preparing to play the role of Freddie Mercury in the 1980s.
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"I'm in my mid 30s so my father would have Queen's Greatest Hits blasting through the car stereo every morning going to school," Taylor told the Lakes Mail from his home in Montreal, Canada.
"So when it came to learning the tunes for this show, I actually knew a hell of a lot more than I thought I did."
Taylor emerged from a series of worldwide auditions to take on the role of Mercury in the tribute act Queen: It's a Kinda Magic, which arrives at Newcastle next month.
As far as tribute shows go, this is a big one.
This international production has been hailed as much as a theatrical creation as a concert experience.
It recreates Queen's 1986 world tour concert, and features more than 20 of the band's biggest hits including Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, and Fat-Bottomed Girls.
And as far as lead singers go, Taylor is not your typical covers band frontman.
The Englishman is a multi-instrumentalist and graduate of music and drama studies at Trinity College of Music in London.
A session muso and vocalist with a three-and-a-half octave range, Taylor was performing on the West End when invited by the producers Showtime Australia to audition for the role of Freddie.
"The reason they asked me was because I'm a piano player as well as a singer, and they wanted somebody who could sing and play the piano parts live," Taylor said.
It was the first inkling Taylor had that the producers were serious about this show.
"There are a lot of good Queen acts out there, but a lot of them use tracks. A lot of them don't play the piano," he said.
Everything in this show is live and, according to Taylor, closer to the real thing than anybody expects.
The band spent eight months honing the distinctive sound of the Queen harmonies.
"And it took us a month and a half to learn Bohemian Rhapsody.
"There's no other Queen tribute band in the world that does the whole of Bohemian Rhapsody live, and that's quite simply because the middle section is an absolute nightmare."
The commitment to authenticity doesn't stop there, he said.
Freddie Mercury's former personal assistant and biographer, Peter Freestone, now tours as a consultant for the show after having been impressed as an audience member.
Freestone regularly works with the band at rehearsal, but before a tour he will spend a week one on one with Taylor.
"It's almost like method acting, where I become Freddie off stage as well as on it," Taylor said.
■ Queen: It's a Kinda Magic plays at Civic Theatre, Newcastle, on Wednesday, September 10, at 8pm. Tickets cost $69.90 to $79.90 from ticketek.com.au