Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury (39 page)

Queen were still on a mission to play virgin territory. The Vatican was denied them, the Russians described them as “decadent,” and the Chinese and Koreans were not playing ball. On agreeing to perform twelve shows at the Super Bowl in South Africa’s controversial Sun City in October 1984, the band found themselves embroiled in the most politically compromising phase of their career. The multimillion-dollar Bophuthatswana desert complex was a Las Vegas–style enclave financed
partly by the government while apartheid was still in place. To the outside world, it represented a V-sign by the privileged white South African minority to the many poverty-stricken black inhabitants of the country’s squalid townships. The British Musicians’ Union had imposed a strict ban on performances there by its members. Artists Against Apartheid, founded by Steven Van Zandt, of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, would capture the anti-apartheid mood on their single “I Ain’t Gonna Play Sun City.” Its lineup included Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr and his drummer son Zak Starkey, Lou Reed, Jackson Browne, Pat Benatar, Peter Gabriel, and Stones Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood. The political single was not a massive hit in America on its release in December 1985, but was a huge success in Australia, Canada, and the UK.

Queen were unrepentant.

“ ‘I Want to Break Free’ is an unofficial anthem among the African Congress Movement, and ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ is one of the biggest-selling songs in South African black history,” explained Roger.

But controversy raged as the band prepared to depart on
The Works
tour—on which they welcomed a fifth member, keyboard player Spike Edney, to perform on stage as part of the band.

They had not played together live for almost two years. Although rehearsing was not their favorite pastime, it was a necessity. Into a Munich hangar they went, equipped with state-of-the-art production, sound, and lighting.

“The very first thing I played with them in rehearsals was ‘Tie Your Mother Down,’ ” recalls Spike. “Which was fine, because they’d been playing that for a hundred years. Then ‘Under Pressure.’ Then they wanted to try out one of the new ones: ‘I Want to Break Free.’ Not really a very difficult song, you might think. We got going into the first verse of it, crumbled, and stopped. It occurred to me that they had never played it live together. I had everything written down, so I said, ‘Actually, it goes like this . . .’ then John came over to the piano, then Brian, and they sort of stood there. Then Freddie pitched up. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have the
words
, old chap, would you?’ he asked. So there we
all were round the piano, and I thought to myself, ‘This is gonna be OK. I can do this.’ ”

The band’s UK shows included three nights at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre, where Spandau Ballet front man Tony Hadley met his idol Freddie for the first time. Hadley’s own voice was so powerful and versatile that he was already being compared to the young Frank Sinatra. Unbeknown to him, Freddie was one of
his
biggest fans.

“Mutual admiration society,” laughed Tony.

“I’d grown up listening to Queen records, and Freddie was the world’s greatest front man. I’d been dying to meet the band. At the time, I was famous enough that I could get a backstage pass to more or less anything. We went back to meet the lads, who were really friendly and polite. They invited us to their after-show party at the hotel next door. I walked in with Leonie [his first wife], there was a spare seat next to Freddie, and he said to me, ‘Come on, darling, come and sit next to me, dear.’ Leonie ended up down the table. We were chatting away when all of a sudden a couple of strippers came on to entertain the troops.

“It seemed to me that Queen always had more fun than anybody else. The parties were big, the records were big, the personalities in the band were bigger than any other group’s. Even John Deacon, who was the quiet one.

“I sat there talking to him that night about the on-stage persona, and he gave me free advice. ‘Never make excuses for being on stage,’ he said. ‘Never apologize. The audience have come to see
you
, so it doesn’t matter if you’re a bit off one night. You’ve just got to front the whole thing out.’ I was twenty-three, twenty-four years old, singing in a band that was doing OK. He was rock royalty. He didn’t have to bother with someone like me. But he was so enthusiastic, so keen to impart his knowledge and experience. He was the only one who ever did that, and I really respected him for it.

“ ‘Every artist is wracked with self-doubt,’ he said to me.

“ ‘Even you?’ I asked. ‘
Especially
me,’ he replied.”

Queen’s 5 September Wembley show culminated in a party for five
hundred friends at Xenon nightclub to celebrate Freddie’s thirty-eighth birthday. The cake was perhaps his most spectacular yet: a five-foot vintage Rolls-Royce. That week, their twenty-sixth single “Hammer to Fall” was released on the same day as Freddie’s debut solo single, “Love Kills,” recorded for the movie
Metropolis
. As the band flew into Dortmund, it was noted that nine Queen albums currently featured in the UK Top 200. In October, Queen and entourage, including Mary Austin and her new live-in lover Joe Burt, the bass player in Tom Robinson’s band, departed for South Africa for their Sun City run. At the debut show, Freddie’s voice gave out just a couple of numbers in, his old throat problem aggravated by the desert heat and dust. That show and the next five were abandoned, the band regrouping for the final six.

On their return to London, Brian and Roger went to the Musicians’ Union to plead their case.

“It was not as if the trip had been a complete jamboree,” reasons Spike. “Queen had done quite a bit of charity stuff out there, including fundraising for the Kutlawamong school for deaf and blind children. They later released a special live album there and donated all royalties to the school. The reaction to the band was so fantastic that I still don’t believe it was the wrong thing to do. Within a couple of years, of course, the whole political thing had changed, and the world started going there.”

Dismissed with a heavy fine, the band were also blacklisted. At least they held out for their money to be donated to charity instead of swelling the union bank balance. They remained puzzled for years by the fiasco.

“We’re totally against apartheid and all it stands for,” said Brian. “But I feel we did a lot of bridge building. We actually met musicians of both colors. They all welcomed us with open arms. The only criticism we got was from outside South Africa.”

Spike concedes that Queen had a reputation for incredible arrogance.

“That’s true. They
were
arrogant. But it was because, most of the
time, they were right. I got the impression that they believed they had been unfairly treated when they started out, which had taught them to be self-sufficient and to rely on their own judgment. The only downside to their arrogance was that it filtered down through the ranks of their organization. People who worked for them started being arrogant on Queen’s behalf, when they didn’t have a right to be. It could all get pretty unbearable at times.”

Freddie returned to Munich, and in December the band produced their first Yuletide single, “Thank God It’s Christmas.” Intended as a send-up of the hackneyed genre, their twenty-seventh single was produced in London, with Freddie’s vocal added in Germany. It failed to make the UK Top Twenty and never appeared on any Queen album. But it has haunted them annually ever since, on every Christmas compilation going. The season’s soar-away Number One, meanwhile, was Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” History was about to be made.

20

Let’s face it, all us rock stars still want to be in the limelight, and this is going to showcase us. Let’s be open about it. OK, we’re helping out, but from the other point of view it’s going to be a worldwide audience, an all-over simultaneous broadcast. That’s what we’re all about as well, and we shouldn’t forget that. I doubt there is one artist that’s going to appear who hasn’t realized that fact.

Freddie Mercury

Music isn’t always about what you play. It is also about what you don’t play.

Freddie Mercury was at least three different people. On stage, off stage, and in that twilight zone somewhere between. He embodied his music. The performance perfectly reflected every song.

Louis Souyave, guitarist, Daytona Lights

T
o Rock
in Rio, “the biggest rock festival the world had ever seen,” 1985’s eight-day New Year extravaganza, also featuring Rod Stewart, Yes, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Ozzy Osbourne, George Benson, James Taylor, and some of Brazil’s best-selling artists, was planned on a scale that promised to live up to even Queen’s expectations. The fact
that their own faithful tour manager Gerry “Uncle Grumpy” Stickells was in charge of the event, and that Queen were invited to headline, clinched the deal. They set off for South America yet again on Sunday 6 January.

Freddie’s personal entourage comprised Mary Austin, Barbara Valentin, Peter Freestone, Paul Prenter, and a minder. Between 250,000 and 300,000 fans traveled for two days or more through blistering heat to become part of the largest rock audience of all time.

Spike Edney had been involved in some major events in his time, but nothing like Rio.

“I knew that Queen’s earlier South American tours had been pioneering adventures, but this was the biggest show ever.”

But his abiding memory is of how sorry he felt for Freddie.

“He was a massive star in South America by then. He was a god. Queen’s ‘Love of My Life’ had been Number One in Argentina forever. It was their ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ Consequently, Fred was a total prisoner once he got down there. He couldn’t go anywhere—not even with armed guards. It was distressing for him. He did manage to slip out once or twice, but it wasn’t worth the aggro.”

Part of the reason for Freddie’s mind-blowing popularity, Spike believes, were his looks.

“I heard it said that when Fred shaved his head and grew the moustache, he became the epitome of the good-looking South American male—a sort of Latin Clark Gable. Perhaps there was a bit of that in what they adored about him.”

The Barra da Tijuca Rockodromo site had taken months to construct and featured a gigantic semicircular stage with a huge fountain on either side. In the event, the fountains proved useful for fans to wash in, torrential rain having rendered the site a mud bath. Giant press stands had been installed, with international telephone lines and picture-wiring facilities for the thousands of journalists and photographers attending. At night, huge searchlights sliced the sky, as if heralding a Hollywood premiere. The purpose-built heliport proved a logistical necessity rather
than a luxury. Forget Freddie’s deep fear of the chopper: there was no other way in to the stage. All roads to the Barra had been jammed for days.

On the first night, Queen were due on after Leyton metalheads Iron Maiden, but they were two hours late going on stage.

“I can’t remember any specific reason why,” says Spike Edney, “maybe it was just running late.”

Queen eventually made it on after two a.m., by which time the crowd was practically in riot mode.

“Jim Beach had fixed it for me to be in the wings when Queen went on,” remembers Peter Hillmore, covering the event for the
Observer
newspaper.

“I peered out and saw this colossal audience. ‘What’s it like being out there on stage?’ I asked Brian. ‘Go and have a look,’ he said.

“I went on. Thousands upon thousands of faces staring up at me, all screaming for Queen. I felt the raw power of Freddie Mercury, and tasted what it was like to have a quarter of a million people wanting nothing more than for you to open your mouth and sing. I felt scared, because I couldn’t actually
do
anything. Queen ambled on and it all started to happen. Roadies rushing about, nobody even noticing me. I floated away to one side.

“I knew, there and then, that more than anything in the world I wanted to be in Queen. I wanted to be Freddie Mercury. He’d lift his hand and they would sing along. He’d drop his hand and they would fall silent, because
he
said so. The effect was unbelievable. Like seeing a nuclear reactor split the atom.”