by Mark Blake
At times, the past must have seemed like a less complicated place than the present. During a break in Holland, May booked a studio to produce a demo for Anita Dobson (‘She’s a very rock ’n’ roll person,’ he enthused). Back in England, though, Christine May would soon become pregnant again. On 5 July, Queen’s Slane Castle gig in Dublin was marred by bad weather and crowd violence. A local councillor deemed the show as ‘a massive rip-off, nihilistic, sensual and anti-social’. Backstage, Mercury supposedly vowed never to play Ireland again.
Offstage, Queen’s after-hours activities now included hard-fought Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit championships, but there was no lack of ‘nihilistic and sensual’ pursuits. ‘There’d been a lesbian floorshow in Paris in the early ’80s,’ recalls one tour insider. ‘But in ’86, in Germany, Queen had an aftershow party in a brothel. I didn’t actually believe it when I was told that all the girls had been pre-paid … Obviously only the single members of the entourage attended.’ There was also the World Cup. Photographer Denis O’Regan joined Mercury to watch Germany beat Mexico on TV. ‘At the end of the match, Freddie jumped up and said, “That’s it! I’m going to go out and fuck me a German!”’
‘When we first said we wanted to do outdoor shows, promoters weren’t confident that Queen would be able to sell enough tickets,’ revealed Gerry Stickells. Yet when Harvey Goldsmith had first invited postal applications for tickets for Queen’s first show at Wembley Stadium, all 72,000 had sold out within a couple of deliveries. In the end, Queen would perform to 150,000 people across two nights at the stadium on 11 and 12 June. Roger Taylor also fulfilled his promise to fans of performing on the biggest stage ever; so big, in fact, that the band’s video screen wouldn’t fit between the stage and the stadium roof. As Gerry Stickells explained: ‘The architectural plans were awry. The distance to the roof was not what it said on the plans.’ After a frantic phone call in which one of the crew suggested, famously, that Stickells ‘press the abort button’, a crane was hired and the crew, again defying the laws of physics, found a way to make the screen fit.
Queen’s first show at Wembley fell on a Friday, and was blighted by torrential rain. The weather held off on the Saturday, where a fifteen-man camera team were in place to shoot the concert for Tyne Tees TV. Backstage, Mick Jagger was among those seen swishing into the VIP enclosure. ‘Mick sat on the side of the stage and said he thought it was too big,’ recalled Stickells later. In fact, Jagger was assessing the competition. The Rolling Stones would roll out their own Steel Wheels extravaganza at Wembley three years later.
‘The Live Aid Effect’ was now visible in Queen’s audience: a balanced split of males and females that also included younger pop fans whose point of entry had been ‘Radio Ga Ga’ and ‘I Want to Break Free’. Queen’s chart positions that week said as much: ‘Friends Will Be Friends’ was in the Top 20, with A Kind of Magic still in the Top 5. It was clear, though, that when Queen played ‘In the Lap of the Gods … Revisited’, a song that had once been a cornerstone of their live show, a percentage of the audience had no idea what they were hearing.
‘There are fans that I speak to in the street who say, “I like your earlier stuff, but I don’t like what you’re doing now,”’ admitted Mercury. ‘But at the same time, there are people who like our new stuff and don’t even know what we did five or six years ago.’ There was also a more playful element to the show. A Kind of Magic’s cover art featured gaudy cartoon images of the band. These had now been turned into helium-filled inflatable models. The blow-up dolls would drift over the audience while they played the title track. Three of the inflatables were captured by the Wembley crowd, while ‘Freddie’ ended up in a garden miles away in Chelmsford, Essex.
The footage from Wembley would be released later on VHS and DVD. It captured the unprecedented scale of the set, the triumphalism of the band, and, though nobody knew it at the time, what would be Freddie Mercury’s last tour. The singer’s rascally banter had been a part of Queen’s live show for years, but on the Magic tour, Mercury seemed more at ease with his role than ever. He would play the prima donna, eyes shut, quivering with supposed emotion one moment, but would just as easily wink at the crowd and send himself up the next. The twitchy smile was a constant, the good-humoured baiting of the audience another. ‘After all, it’s really only a game,’ he said. ‘But a serious game.’
Queen celebrated their two-night stand at Wembley with an £80,000 soirée at the Kensington Roof Gardens. Remembered by one of the 500 guests as ‘another night of bacchanalian excess’, naked waiters and waitresses, their bodies daubed with paint to look like a uniform, joined the usual retinue of drag queens and topless models. The Sun’s Page-Three-model-turned-pop-star Samantha Fox, seventies glam-rocker Gary Glitter, and Marillion’s Fish joined Mercury onstage to muddle through ‘Tutti Frutti’ and ‘Johnny B. Goode’. The group christened themselves Dicky Hart and The Pacemakers.
While Jim Hutton was told to stay away from the cameras, Mercury would be photographed at the party with Mary Austin. In public, he was still maintaining the façade. The complexity of their relationship became apparent when the Daily Express writer David Wigg, one of the few journalists Mercury trusted, wrote a story claiming that Austin has asked Freddie to father a child for her. Mercury, still claiming to be single, had explained that he would prefer to buy another cat.
Jim Hutton was now living with Mercury in the refurbished Garden Lodge. His role would also become confused by the fact that although paid to work as Freddie’s gardener, he was also sleeping with the boss. Mercury was aware of the pressure he put any partner under. Stranger still, Mary Austin’s job within the Queen organisation made her responsible for paying Hutton’s £600 a month wages. ‘It’s like the old Hollywood stories where all those wonderful actresses just couldn’t carry on a relationship because their careers came first,’ said Mercury. ‘That’s the way it is with me. I can’t stop the wheel for a while and devote myself to a love affair. The wheel has to keep turning, and that makes it very hard for anyone to live with me and be happy.’
Queen followed their UK stadium dates with a trip to the Continent for outdoor shows in Austria and Communist Hungary. While their old sparring partner Elton John had already played in Budapest, Queen would be the first international rock group to play what EMI trumpeted as ‘the first stadium rock gig behind the Iron Curtain’.
The band arrived by hydrofoil on the River Danube, with Roger Taylor sporting a nautical-looking blazer, and Mercury asking how many bedrooms there were in the Hungarian House of Parliament and if it was for sale. Queen were hurried past the fans, newspaper reporters and TV crews gathered on the quay, and straight into the British Embassy, where a reception was being thrown in their honour. For the Hungarian government, having a Western rock band play in Budapest could be spun as an example of improving East–West relations. Queen’s motivation was much simpler. ‘We like going places where it’s a challenge,’ said Brian May. ‘What happened with Budapest was the same as what happened with South America. Someone comes along and says, “You’re huge in X, why don’t you go and play there?”’ Meanwhile, the president of the 5,000-strong Hungarian wing of the Official Queen Fan Club griped that just 100 of his members had managed to acquire tickets for the gig: ‘Queen only want the money now,’ he told a reporter from Sounds.
For Queen’s management, the trip could also be perceived as an olive branch to the press. Several Fleet Street journalists and the writer David Quantick, from NME, had been invited. Before long, Quantick found himself in conversation with Mercury, despite being told that the singer would not be granting any interviews. ‘I’m not supposed to be talking to you,’ Freddie protested, before carrying on regardless and inviting David to join the band for dinner.
‘We arrived at something called a “hunter’s restaurant”,’ says Quantick now. ‘Freddie told his manager: “Order loads of whatever the best food is. Loads of meat for everyone!” Sat next to Roger Taylor was a terribly chic, if ext
remely drunk, blonde. Before long, she became the focus of Mercury’s attention. ‘Freddie leans over,’ recalls Quantick. ‘“Don’t start!” cries Roger. “Not again!” Oh yes, again. “How big is your cunt, dear?” asks Freddie. “Can you get it over your head, dear?”’ Amid much laughter, particularly from the band’s interpreter, and some angry gesturing from the blonde, Mercury backed down – ‘Just joking, dear’ – and offered his victim a cigarette. Later, waiting at the baggage carousel at Heathrow Airport, Queen’s PR sidled up to Quantick and asked if he’d submit his interview quotes to the band’s management for approval. He declined.
On the night, Queen played to 80,000 inside the Neptstadion and an estimated 45,000 ticketless fans who showed up just to listen outside, some of whom had travelled from as far as Odessa and Warsaw. Beforehand, it was announced that the government had announced ‘lenient restriction on audience behaviour’, although drinking and smoking were not permitted. Mercury and May had spent three days rehearsing an Hungarian folk song, ‘Tavaszi Szél Vizet Áraszt’, which they would perform on the night. ‘Freddie had the words written on the palm of his hand,’ says photographer Denis O’Regan. ‘During his performance, he was flicking his fingers and looking down, trying to read the lyrics.’ Nevertheless, it was a turning point in the show. ‘Before, the audience hadn’t known how to react,’ said Brian May. ‘Then they realised we were serious. The reaction at that point was fucking deafening.’ The experience was recorded for Magic: Queen in Budapest, an 85-minute documentary and concert film released the following year. Another country conquered, or, to paraphrase Mercury, ‘ticked off’.
Less than a week later, Queen flew to Spain for four outdoor shows. Interviewed for a TV arts programme, Mercury let slip appreciation of the Spanish opera singer Montserrat Caballé. Mercury was a huge opera buff, and had seen Caballé perform in Los Angeles and at London’s Royal Opera House. His comment would find its way to Caballé, who was away on tour at the time. Just months later, the two would begin working together on Mercury’s most ambitious album yet.
The Magic tour ended on 9 August in front of 120,0000 at Knebworth Park. By now, the tour statistics had become a story in their own right: 5,000 amps, 8.6 miles of cable, a 20-feet by 30-feet video screen … Queen’s support acts reflected the headliners’ catholic tastes: vogueish pop star Belouis Some (one hit: ‘Imagination’), worthy Celtic-rockers Big Country, and Roger Taylor’s old drinking buddy Rick Parfitt with Status Quo. Queen arrived backstage in two helicopters, one of which had been decorated with the new album’s gaudy artwork.
Onstage, Queen ran like clockwork. Unlike those earlier shows, though, they were playing to a sea of bodies that seemed to go on forever. A stadium audience could be contained. At Knebworth, there were 120,000 human beings disappearing into the distance, beyond the fast-food vans, the drinks tents and as far as the crop of trees on the horizon. Close to the stage, but unseen by the band, a 21-year-old male fan was stabbed to death during a drunken brawl. Tragically, the sheer number of people on site made it impossible for an ambulance to reach him before he bled to death. Up onstage, at the end of ‘Radio Ga Ga’, John Deacon took off his bass guitar and flung it at his amp.
‘John had already smashed his usual bass at another show,’ reveals Peter Hince, who was in the wings watching the tantrum. Hince retrieved the instrument, which was unbroken, and retuned it. ‘John came out to me during the blackout before the encore and started apologising. I said, “It’s OK, John, it’s OK … I’ve fixed it.” He wasn’t pissed off at his gear, he wasn’t pissed off at me. I don’t know what it was. John acted strangely on that tour; he was doing stuff that was out of character.’ ‘I did have a strange feeling when John threw his bass into the wings,’ says Denis O’Regan. ‘It had a sense of finality.’
‘I am going through a very uncertain phase in my life,’ confessed Deacon at the time, blaming his feelings ‘on the insecurities of being in the music business and being in a band.’ One of Deacon’s oldest friends would later explain that ‘all the pressure used to make him a bit ill. When he [Deacon] came back off a tour, he couldn’t revert to being a normal person.’ ‘Queen became superstars again on the Magic tour,’ adds Peter Hince. ‘John did appreciate it, but I think he’d had enough a long time before Queen finished: after Hot Space probably, before they’d even started The Works. Then he had a huge hit single with ‘I Want to Break Free’, and he felt inspired again. Then there was Live Aid … But John tried to play devil’s advocate to everybody. He was also slaving away, looking after Queen’s business interests with the accountants, and thinking, “Where can it go now?”’
Mercury finished the show draped in his regal gown and crown, declaring ‘Goodnight and sweet dreams’; the last words he would ever utter at a Queen concert. Backstage, the aftershow celebrations were soon in full swing, with mud wrestlers, fairground rides, more booze, more drugs, more hangers-on … Before long, Freddie was back in a helicopter and on his way to London. Queen’s Magic tour had played to more than 400,000 people, grossing over £11 million. On the flight home, any victory celebrations were quelled by news of the fatal stabbing.
Years later, Brian May would recall an incident in Spain, just days before Knebworth: ‘John and Freddie were having a minor disagreement and Freddie said, “Well, I won’t always be here to do this.”’ Initially, the guitarist dismissed the comment. In hindsight, it was the first indication that Mercury might give up touring. But he would soon make his intention clear. ‘At the end of that tour, Freddie said, “I don’t want to do this any more,”’ said May. ‘It was kind of uncharacteristic, because he was always up for everything and very strong. We thought that maybe it was just a stage he was going through, or maybe there was something wrong. I remember having that thought in my head, but you just push that thought aside.’
‘After Knebworth, I had a feeling Queen would never play live again,’ says Peter Hince, who had now given up the crew job to continue a new career as a photographer. ‘I think he didn’t want to become a parody of himself. I think Freddie thought he would still make music and videos but I don’t think he wanted to look like a joke.’ Despite the success of Wembley and Knebworth, Queen could not be persuaded to take another run at America. ‘Gerry Stickells had talked about provisional dates for the Magic tour with promoters in the States,’ insists Hince. ‘He wanted them to do indoor venues in New York, Los Angeles … During the tour, Gerry was calling those promoters up and telling them how well it was going in Europe.’ Later, in the UK, Queen’s next single, ‘Who Wants to Live Forever’, would make it to number 24. In America, though, Mercury’s ‘Diana Ross impersonation’, ‘Pain is So Close to Pleasure’, failed to chart.
In September, after celebrating his fortieth birthday, Mercury flew to Japan for a holiday. He returned to find the News of the World claiming he had taken a secret AIDS test at a Harley Street clinic. Just days later, the Sun splashed with a photograph of Mercury arriving at Heathrow from his ‘£250,000 shopping trip to Japan’ under the headline: ‘DO I LOOK LIKE I’M DYING OF AIDS? FUMES FREDDIE.’ Mercury told the Sun’s reporter that he was ‘perfectly fit and healthy’. He denied taking the test, but it was impossible for him to continue ignoring what was going on around him. Freddie’s ex-boyfriend Tony Bastin, supposedly the inspiration behind the song ‘Play the Game’, had contracted AIDS and would die in November.
May was now distracting himself from his marital problems by planning another solo album and working with Bad News, the spoof heavy metal band made up of comic actors Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer and Adrian Edmonson. Mercury followed suit. In November, Freddie booked into London’s Townhouse Studios to record another single: a version of The Platters’ 1956 hit, ‘The Great Pretender’. It seemed the perfect song choice. Mercury co-produced the single with Mike Moran, a keyboard player and musical arranger he’d met while working on the Time musical. Moran had briefly been a pop star when his song ‘Rock Bottom’ had been the UK’s entry in the 1977 Eurovision S
ong Contest. Moran would become a close musical collaborator and dear friend.
David Mallet’s video for ‘The Great Pretender’ featured Roger Taylor and Mercury’s old friend Peter Straker in drag, with Taylor resembling a particularly raddled Tina Turner. Freddie, meanwhile, recreated some of his most famous video roles, including ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘I Want to Break Free’. Clean-shaven and wearing a pink suit, he ended the video descending a huge Hollywood staircase lined with one-hundred life-size cardboard cut-outs of himself.
Watching the performance was Chris Chesney. In 1970, the man still known as Fred Bulsara had briefly joined Chesney’s band Sour Milk Sea. Chris had continued to play music, but was now employed in the art department of David Mallet’s production company. ‘I felt a huge embarrassment about being seen working on Queen’s things,’ he says. ‘I didn’t want it to be seen as an admission of failure. I didn’t want them to think I’d fucked up. So I tried to stay away.’
Unable to help himself, Chesney snuck onto the set of ‘The Great Pretender’. ‘I was in the shadows, trying to be inconspicuous. Freddie was on the great, infinite staircase, and he spotted me: “Chris! How are you?’ He came running over and took me off into his dressing room.’ It was Chesney’s first experience of Freddie Mercury. ‘“You want champagne?” He clicked his fingers, and straight away there was champagne. I remember he was knocking back the vodka like it was going out of fashion. Then it was, “Have a line of coke … Have a line …” But it was nice. It was like rolling the years back. Then he said, “You must play on my solo album. I’ll call you!” And, of course, he never called and I felt too awkward to call him.’ Chris Chesney never saw Fred Bulsara again.
