outdoor show at Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland. New Zealand: beautiful country, but hardly a rock tour paradise with its severe lack of clubs, drugs and loose women; which inspired us to suggest that the authorities put a sign up at immigration stating: Check your genitals in here – you will not be requiring them during your visit. Unless you like sheep. Plenty of choice there.
When Fred came on stage prior to the intro tape, he was late and clearly drunk. Boredom or bad influences? Both. He was late, due to Tony Williams (aka Mr Hyde), our wardrobe ‘mistress’, having dressed him with his trousers back to front, which had gone undetected until Fred began his long walk to the outdoor stage. Tony was invariably drunk himself and often had the shakes, asking: ‘Dear boy, could you help me thread this needle?’ Lovely man, who became Mr Hyde when he drank. At those times, just being his friend became a full-time job.
As the show started, Fred was giggling and forgetting words to songs, his timing was off and he even asked me what songs he had to play – and how did they go! The show was not a disaster though, and some of the songs were played well, but Fred sporadically lost his grip and the rest of Queen suffered as a result. The encore was the classic Elvis Presley song ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and invited on stage to join in was Tony – not drunken ‘wardrobe’ Tony thinking he could have a sing-along, but Tony Hadley, singer and front man of Spandau Ballet. Tony, who was on a break from his own tour, is a great, unpretentious guy – but he didn’t know the words! A rock star who doesn’t know the words to Elvis Presley’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’?
While crouched at the end of Fred’s piano watching him singing his heart out, I occasionally looked out at the audience and pondered on life, death and where I was going on my own personal journey. What would I do? What was this life all about? Why was I doing it? By my mid-twenties I had become a sub-Steinway sage. ‘Is this the real life? Is this just Battersea?’ The penultimate line in Bohemian Rhapsody: ‘Nothing really matters…’ became poignant to me as I often reflected on the futility of all this ‘rock stuff’ and how easily jaded we could become on the road. However, as the song ended and all the lights came up, illuminating the thousands of people in raptures over ‘Bo Rhap’, then I guess it did really matter to some people and was an important part of their lives at that time.
As I ruminated, Queen would rip into the next rocking song and my introspection evaporated. Back to business as usual. The final song of Queen’s set climaxed with me setting a chain of pyro explosions off across the front of the stage – and singeing a few photographers and security guards in the process. Fair sport. Brian was the only other member of Queen to address the audience directly during a show and usually only once or twice. In the mid-1970s, before the final song of Queen’s set, Brian would announce: ‘We would like to leave you as we always leave you – In The Lap Of The Gods.’ (Crew version: ‘We’d like to leave you as we always leave you – bored and screaming for your money back!’)
Queen would leave the stage in darkness to tremendous applause, stomping and screaming, leaving us in the twilight zone before the encores. All around us were thousands of lit matches and lighters held aloft, sparkling through air thick with smoke, pyrotechnic dust, humidity and an energy-charged atmosphere. This holding of a flame aloft became a common sight, but the first time I saw it in America I just wanted to stop, stare, absorb it all and see how long the lights could be sustained.
Would you like one more?
An encore?
CHAPTER TWO
ANOTHER ONE PLEASE â AN ENCORE
( MAKE MINE A DOUBLE)
T he rock show encore â you know itâs coming, a spontaneous second coming. Or three. In the mid-1970s , a Queen encore featured Fred throwing stems of red
When Fred came on stage prior to the intro tape, he was late and clearly drunk. Boredom or bad influences? Both. He was late, due to Tony Williams (aka Mr Hyde), our wardrobe ‘mistress’, having dressed him with his trousers back to front, which had gone undetected until Fred began his long walk to the outdoor stage. Tony was invariably drunk himself and often had the shakes, asking: ‘Dear boy, could you help me thread this needle?’ Lovely man, who became Mr Hyde when he drank. At those times, just being his friend became a full-time job.
As the show started, Fred was giggling and forgetting words to songs, his timing was off and he even asked me what songs he had to play – and how did they go! The show was not a disaster though, and some of the songs were played well, but Fred sporadically lost his grip and the rest of Queen suffered as a result. The encore was the classic Elvis Presley song ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and invited on stage to join in was Tony – not drunken ‘wardrobe’ Tony thinking he could have a sing-along, but Tony Hadley, singer and front man of Spandau Ballet. Tony, who was on a break from his own tour, is a great, unpretentious guy – but he didn’t know the words! A rock star who doesn’t know the words to Elvis Presley’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’?
While crouched at the end of Fred’s piano watching him singing his heart out, I occasionally looked out at the audience and pondered on life, death and where I was going on my own personal journey. What would I do? What was this life all about? Why was I doing it? By my mid-twenties I had become a sub-Steinway sage. ‘Is this the real life? Is this just Battersea?’ The penultimate line in Bohemian Rhapsody: ‘Nothing really matters…’ became poignant to me as I often reflected on the futility of all this ‘rock stuff’ and how easily jaded we could become on the road. However, as the song ended and all the lights came up, illuminating the thousands of people in raptures over ‘Bo Rhap’, then I guess it did really matter to some people and was an important part of their lives at that time.
As I ruminated, Queen would rip into the next rocking song and my introspection evaporated. Back to business as usual. The final song of Queen’s set climaxed with me setting a chain of pyro explosions off across the front of the stage – and singeing a few photographers and security guards in the process. Fair sport. Brian was the only other member of Queen to address the audience directly during a show and usually only once or twice. In the mid-1970s, before the final song of Queen’s set, Brian would announce: ‘We would like to leave you as we always leave you – In The Lap Of The Gods.’ (Crew version: ‘We’d like to leave you as we always leave you – bored and screaming for your money back!’)
Queen would leave the stage in darkness to tremendous applause, stomping and screaming, leaving us in the twilight zone before the encores. All around us were thousands of lit matches and lighters held aloft, sparkling through air thick with smoke, pyrotechnic dust, humidity and an energy-charged atmosphere. This holding of a flame aloft became a common sight, but the first time I saw it in America I just wanted to stop, stare, absorb it all and see how long the lights could be sustained.
Would you like one more?
An encore?
CHAPTER TWO
ANOTHER ONE PLEASE â AN ENCORE
( MAKE MINE A DOUBLE)
T he rock show encore â you know itâs coming, a spontaneous second coming. Or three. In the mid-1970s , a Queen encore featured Fred throwing stems of red
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