Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury (31 page)

“As we walked into the airport building, we couldn’t believe our ears,” he said. “They stopped all the flight announcements and were playing our music instead.”

Argentinian journalist Marcela Delorenzi, then a fifteen-year-old fan, described it as “the first big rock event in our country.”

“It caused an unbelievable revolution across the land,” she said. “In the press, and on radio and TV, twenty-four hours a day for the month before they arrived, people talked about nothing but Queen. In the wake of their tour, our own rock artists were forced to change their image and adopt a completely new approach. All their equipment, sound, lighting, every aspect of the live performance had to be improved and upgraded. Suddenly, everything that had previously passed as acceptable seemed pathetic when compared to Queen. This, in Argentina, was like the rock version of
BC
. From then on it was all Before Queen, and After Queen. Their effect on South America was profound. Hordes of people from Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia crossed the borders
to see the Argentina shows. The Buenos Aires dates are engraved on my memory: 28 February, 1 March, and 9 March.”

When Marcela met her idol Freddie Mercury for the first time, she said tearfully, it changed her life.

“He was staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Buenos Aires. I was there with a lot of other Queen fans, waiting for the band. They had to go to a press conference at the stadium. There was a huge crowd waiting outside to see Freddie, screaming and chanting like it was the end of the world.

“I was dressed entirely in pale blue,” recalls Marcela.

“And it was a great surprise, when the lift door opened in the hotel lobby, to see that Freddie was dressed from head to toe in exactly the same color. He was surrounded by bodyguards, but I felt this incredible urge to break through and hug him. I smashed through the circle and I did hug him, and I gave him a letter, saying that I would like to meet ‘Frederick Bulsara’—not Mercury—and put my address and telephone number, never expecting him to call, of course. I referred to him by his original name because I always regarded Freddie as having two sides: the good and the bad, the white and the black. Freddie Bulsara was the good, the white side. It would not be until years later that I discovered that I wasn’t so wrong.

“Then one of the bodyguards hit me, and they pushed me away. I could not blame them for being anxious, in case somebody intended to wound Freddie, but obviously I meant him no harm. I just had to touch him. I imagine there must be millions around the world who felt exactly like me. The band then left the hotel, got straight in their car, and were driven away. Only Brian hung behind to sign autographs. They had to throw him in the back of the car [an armored vehicle, complete with machine guns] in the end. As they drove away, I watched Freddie open and start reading my letter, and I was so elated.”

This was the same Argentinian girl who brought me a copy of Freddie’s birth certificate in London, five years after his death.

At the Vélez Sarsfield stadium in Buenos Aires, fans queued from
eight a.m. for the three sell-out shows—even though, due to the unbearable heat, performances would not kick off until ten p.m. Marcela attended two of the Buenos Aires gigs, watching her idols take to the stage flanked by armed guards.

“Argentina had never seen anything like it,” she said. “At the beginning, they had something like a UFO descend onto the stage, amazing lights, smoke—it was like magic. Everyone had goose pimples. People were literally sobbing, all around. The pitch was protected with Astroturf, and security was extremely tight, police everywhere, because we had such a strict, extreme-right military government at that time, led by General Viola. The General said that he wanted to meet Queen, and sent an invitation for them to visit him. The whole band went except Roger, who objected, saying that he was in Argentina to play for the people, not for the government.”

It was an inflammatory statement. The country was then in the grip of a military junta led by Roberto Eduardo Viola Redondo. He would be ousted in a coup that December by the army’s commander-in-chief, General Leopoldo Galtieri and was later imprisoned for alleged human rights violations. Galtieri would preside over the buildup and pursuit of the Falklands War, which would rage between the UK and Argentina in 1982. When the troubles erupted, all Queen music was banned from the airwaves.

“Within two years of Queen’s first visit, we achieved democracy for the first time in nearly fifteen years,” Marcela pointed out. “A similar thing happened in Brazil. Queen also went down to Sun City in South Africa in 1984, on a highly controversial visit. Within a couple of years, apartheid had fallen and the people had democracy. And shortly after they played gigs in Hungary in 1986, the old regime was abandoned and Hungarians had a new democratic future to look forward to. All probably coincidence, but a really amazing thing: wherever Queen went, it was as if they were bringing freedom and peace to the people. It was as if they were the band of liberty.”

Freddie was at the peak of his game, and looked muscular, tanned,
and fit. For their live performances, he went with his new stage look of tight jeans and white vest, with a scarf threaded through his belt loops. His neatly trimmed moustache was kept thick, to hide his protruding teeth. It was the identity he would maintain for the rest of his performing career which, although he did not know it at the time, was to be just five more years.

Pumping with energy, Freddie rushed at the stage each night. The roar of the crowd was deafening, but Freddie met it head-on.

“Not only did he cast a spell on his audience,” recalled David Wigg. “He cast a spell on himself.”

Freddie conducted the audience while belting out enthusiastic “Yeahs!” “All rights!” and “OKs!” “
¡Cantan muy bien!
” he praised the fans: “You sing very well!” One special song stole the show: “Love of My Life,” which Freddie had written for Mary Austin. A live recording of that sweet ballad, released as a single throughout South America in 1979, had reigned at Number One in Argentina and Brazil for a year. The fans knew the song by heart. Their English was word-perfect. The throng was suddenly transformed into a sea of swaying flames as thousands pulled their lighters out. Freddie raised further thunder when he arranged himself at the piano to introduce another familiar number.

“This is sometimes known as ‘Bo Rap.’ ”

The band launched into their signature, leaving the stage during the backing track of the choral sequences. Not even for the faithful of South America could that section of the song be performed live.

One of several interviews which Freddie gave in Buenos Aires was to
Pelo
(
Hair
), the massive-selling Argentinian equivalent of
Rolling Stone
magazine. Asked why he appeared always to be apart from the rest of the group, Freddie responded: “As Queen play and record together, people see us as having a super-unit image. But Queen is a musical group, not a family. Each one of us does whatever we like.”

In fact, a hallmark of that tour, and the shape of things to come, was a distinct divide between Freddie, his companions, and the band management—Peter Freestone, Joe Fanelli, Jim Beach, Paul Prenter, and
Freddie’s visiting current squeeze Peter Morgan—(all “poofters” apart from Beach) in one camp, and the rest of the band and crew (the “heteros”) in another. Off-stage, the two factions lived separate lives, with the tour held together by Gerry Stickells, who took charge of the road and stage crew.

Freddie was, as usual, struggling with conflict in his private life. Morgan, a high-profile former Mr. UK bodybuilder, infamous for having starred in one of the earliest homoerotic videos, had been having a sizzling on-off relationship with Freddie for some time and flew out to join his lover for the Buenos Aires experience. But during his stay, Morgan betrayed Freddie with a much younger man, which Freddie discovered by chance when he spotted the couple strolling along the street one day. Two-timed by a lover yet again, Freddie could not be blamed for losing confidence in love. He dumped Morgan and focused his attention on the job in hand for the time being.

Not that the experience taught him a lesson. Freddie’s next disastrous lover would be an American, Bill Reid, a stocky homosexual from New Jersey whom he met one night in a bar back in Manhattan. That relationship was to prove perhaps the stormiest of all. Freddie’s entourage remember physical fights, smashed glass, and shameful behavior from the “Bill Reid era.” According to Peter Freestone, Reid would be the reason Freddie eventually went off New York, withdrawing from the scene there, and even perhaps why he settled for the “safer option” of a “different guy after every show.”

“There were many intense emotional moments,” reflected Freestone. “It was almost as though Freddie needed these surges of passion to start his creative juices flowing. That either because of the high pressure of work, he finished relationships, or conversely engineered dramatic rows when he needed the extra boost.”

Emotional conflict certainly seemed to enhance his creativity.

*   *   *

In Buenos Aires, fueled by the anger and heartache Peter Morgan had caused him, Freddie threw himself into his work as rarely before.

What were his expectations of the tour?

“I knew a lot about Argentina,” he said, “but I never imagined that we were so well known here. I am amazed by the nation’s reaction to our being here . . . we had long wanted to do a big South American tour. The idea had been in our minds for a long time. But for the past six months we have been working hard. Nonstop, really. Queen is not just the band. It involves a vast number of people. And therefore it costs a lot of money for us to tour.”

As for the price of fame, and of problems with the press, Freddie was dismissive. “It bothered me for a long time.” He shrugged. “But, as you can see, not anymore.”

In another interview with since-defunct
Radiolandia 2000
magazine, he declared his love for the Argentinian people.

“I was accustomed to another kind of reaction and behavior from audiences,” he said.

“But Argentinians are amazing, and I want to come back. I must admit I love it that people think I’m an idol. I do want to be a legend, but you must understand that our work is a joint effort. Queen is not just Freddie Mercury. It’s the band. You just have to remember “Seven Seas of Rhye,” “Killer Queen,” “You’re My Best Friend,” “Somebody to Love” (Freddie’s and his mother’s personal favorite), “Bohemian Rhapsody”—which actually was the most satisfying moment of my career. This was all Queen, not Freddie. I think the best proof of our respect for the audience is our work.”

To avoid kidnapping or acts of terrorism, security on that tour was the tightest yet. Each band member was assigned a local bodyguard and translator, in addition to the English security staff who now traveled with the group. Freddie would amuse himself by getting his own bodyguard to write autographs on his behalf, when fans left mountains of items for him to sign. He would also infuriate his caretakers by pushing all the buttons in the lift at once, causing the doors to open on every floor. Described as “like a small boy having mischief,” Freddie would do press-ups on the hall carpet or challenge his minders to running races
along the hotel corridors whenever he found himself waiting around, which was often.

He also started insisting to all and sundry that cigarettes were bad for the health. To that end, he banned his chauffeurs from smoking. The drivers naturally assumed that Freddie was talking about his
own
health. Imagine their surprise when he slid into the limousine and lit up a menthol cigarette. “It’s for the good of
their
health, not mine!” he howled, tickled by his own joke.

One suffocating night, Freddie demanded dinner at exclusive Buenos Aires restaurant Los Años Locos (the Mad Years). With such a high-profile charge in such a visible place, his bodyguards were on tenterhooks—especially when he begged to go to the men’s room alone instead of uttering his usual “pi-pi!” and waiting to be taken. As his party’s table was on the second floor, with the gents’ nearby, his guards relaxed. They didn’t see why he shouldn’t relieve himself alone for once. They would notice, surely, if anyone tried to sneak into the toilet while Freddie was inside. But after almost twenty minutes, Freddie had not reappeared. The guards realized something must have happened and rushed to the men’s room.

“We found two men and two women banging on one of the cubicle doors, which appeared to be locked from the inside,” a guard reported. “We could only assume Freddie was in there. These people were terrorizing him, shouting at Freddie to open the door, they
had
to see him, they
must
have autographs. Freddie was not responding, and I could now see that he had locked himself in. I feared something must have happened to him. We yelled at the people to get out. When things calmed down a little, and Freddie realized it was us, he opened the door. He seemed terrified. ‘You were right,’ he said with a white face. ‘I can’t even go to the bathroom alone, can I?’ ”

The night before Queen’s final date at Vélez Sarsfield, the band were invited to a celebratory “
asado
” (barbecue/roasting) at the
quinta
(weekend retreat) of stadium president Señor Petraca. The huge estate was beautiful, and the band fell in love with it. All went well until the press
appeared. Freddie’s mood changed. Not that he objected to journalists per se. I was a journalist myself when I met him, and he was always the perfectly relaxed host. It was simply the unimaginative questions that foreign journalists tended to ask which exasperated him.

“They’ve been asking me the same stupid questions for the past ten years,” he said.

Freddie was in a mischievous mood when two local journalists approached him, one of whom worked for
Pelo
magazine, neither of whom spoke English. Unbeknown to the hack, Freddie and his interpreter had cooked up a deal. The latter would translate questions for Freddie, so that he knew what was being asked. While Freddie spouted nonsense, the interpreter would tell the journalist whatever came into his head. When the interpreter obtained a copy of the magazine, they were amused to see that all the answers were accurately fictitious—except one, relating to Diego Maradona.