Freddie Mercury (7 page)

In February, the band were due to continue
The Game Tour
and as I had been asked to go with them, it was deemed wise for me to stay on salary. I certainly had no wish whatsoever to return to ‘operator services’.

First stop on the next tour was to be Japan and then on to South America where Queen were scheduled to appear in Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela. On the 8th February we flew into Japan for the tour and also for the band to be guests of honour at the Japanese Premiere of
Flash Gordon.
The arrival at the cinema was the usual five car
motorcade, the fifth car holding the translation staff. We were met by assorted VIPs but, to Freddie’s relief, the friendly and familiar face of Misa Watanabe was amongst them. We were escorted to our seats in the circle and for once Freddie had to undergo the ordeal of sitting all the way through a film without fidgeting. It must have been torture for him.

February 12,13,16,11,18: Budokan Hall, Tokyo

Gary Numan was at the first three shows and after one of them, we all went out to dinner to one of Tokyo’s more exclusive restaurants where Gary proceeded to send one of his minions out to bring in some fast food from McDonald’s for him. Freddie didn’t know what to say but I, on the other hand, can quite safely say that we were most decidedly not amused!

At the end of the tour, we were due to leave Narita Airport on February 20 for New York to then fly on to Buenos Aires. There were three of us, Freddie, Paul Prenter and I who boarded the plane for New York. I noticed that the seat configuration in first-class was different to normal but decided to say nothing about it. The three of us took our seats and Freddie finally voiced the puzzlement I could see on his face.

“What sort of plane is this?” he asked.

I had a rough idea but checked the safety instruction card and found that we were on a DC10.

“DC death more like!” was his reply. It was at a time when there had been two accidents in quick succession involving DC10s.

With that, Freddie picked up his belongings and informed the cabin personnel that he would not be flying with them that day. With us in tow, he swept off the aircraft and back into the terminal. The flight was delayed for about an hour while our suitcases were located and retrieved. These were then presented to us back in the lounge. We discovered that the next Boeing 747 was a Pan Am flight fourteen hours later. Due to this, the three of us had to have our cancelled visas voided in order that we should legally remain in the airport. To show the depth of feeling Freddie had for the DCIO, he was even prepared to travel tourist class on the later 747 as first and business class were full.

During our sojourn we used the departure lounge as a base for a
fourteen hour shopping expedition on which he bought, amongst other things, a beautiful pearl necklace for his mother.

Indeed, we had to travel in economy along with all the crew who were booked on that flight. They couldn’t believe their eyes seeing Freddie slumming it with them! We first flew to New York where we changed planes, returning to first-class after a brief stopover and thence, flew south to Buenos Aires in Argentina. Queen’s visit was the first of a major international rock band to the countries of South America, playing in gigantic stadia. To meet the band, there was a government official and the band party were ushered through, our passports having been taken from us to ease the passage and were later returned at the hotel. I however had to hang around at the airport to supervise the collection of the luggage. Freddie enjoyed the privileges that he and the band received from government reception parties although he was not fond of meeting the officials in person.

Freddie would sit, accompanied by John Deacon, with a cigarette in his hand, playing with it to disguise his nervousness and to give his expressive hands something to do and allow the less reticent Brian and Roger to do all the chatting, making only occasional interjections. He knew he was expected to involve himself in the talking but did so as little as possible although he always knew that it was important for him to be seen to say something.

Buenos Aires was hot and humid being close to the river. The Sheraton Hotel was right in the middle of the city but it was all very green and reminded us of Paris, lots of grand avenues and very expensive shops. The city of Evita. Freddie had been joined at this time by Peter Morgan, his current beau, one-time Mister UK with whom Freddie had had a tempestuous relationship for some months. Known also as Morgan Winner, Peter had achieved a certain notoriety because of a homo-erotic video he had made – one of the earliest.

The first gig was within the first couple of days of our arrival in the Velez Sarsfield Stadium on February 28. Freddie was very apprehensive because of the size of the venue. Also, the rumours abounded that the crowd would get out of control because finally their dream had been realised – a Northern Hemisphere mega-band was playing in South America.

Hyde Park in 1976 was the largest audience to which the band had played previously and Freddie knew that he had to forge an entirely
new performance to embrace the vastness of the next five outdoor dates which were scheduled over the next nine days, five dates which furnished a total audience of four hundred and seventy-nine thousand people.

Freddie also knew that it was imperative for him to pace himself in these performances. But what sort of performance? And what pace? It was completely unknown territory for Queen. The world’s press were gathered and although Freddie hated this particular interface, he knew he also had to perform for the cameras again, albeit stills.

The first gig went superbly. Freddie was elated with his performance and was awestruck by the reaction of the fans, the way the huge audience took over the singing of ‘Love Of My Life’ took his breath away! He wasn’t given a chance to ‘come down’ after the show before his next little adventure began, the journey from the stadium back to the hotel. Such was the apprehension of both the city’s authorities and the local police that the only way they considered the band leaving the stadium was in the back of a police van. The four members of the band, Jim Beach, Paul Prenter and some form of security presence were immediately bundled into the back of the van which was then escorted by five police cars and perhaps twenty police motorcycle outriders. The rest of the party followed in cars. The idea was to get the band party out of the immediate vicinity of the madding crowd, a route which took them out onto a nearby motorway. With sirens screaming and the procession hurtling along at eighty miles an hour, we went a circuitous route along the motorway. When the escort was satisfied that no one had followed, the convoy came to a halt and the band got into their separate cars, each having their own limousine. We then made our way back to the hotel.

Freddie accepted that for once he had to rest because he knew he had to pull another cat out of the bag the next day. It took him a while to get over the excitement but it took the next day’s audience even longer to get over their excitement at seeing both Freddie and Queen and Argentina’s brilliant young football star, Diego Maradona on the same stage. Freddie, not being renowned for his sporting knowledge, knew he had to exchange shirts with this person as per time-honoured football ritual although Freddie did not actually realise who or what Maradona was. He was also quite surprised that footballers came in such small packages.

Mar del Plata. Silver Sea. This is the main resort city of Argentina. I
can’t remember the name of the hotel but I remember Freddie likening it to a ship; the front of the hotel was like the bridge with huge extensions on the sides. It looked as though it was burgeoning out to sea. Freddie’s suite had a very good view of the promenade which for better or worse lead to the ending of his stormy relationship with Peter Morgan.

Freddie knew that at no time in South America would he be able to go on one of his fabled shopping sprees because of the security risk so he had resigned himself to staying in the hotel. After asking Peter to stay and keep him company, Peter replied that he would be going out for a short walk for a few minutes. Having nothing else to do, Freddie was viewing the scene in front of the hotel from his balcony when he saw Peter walking along the croisette next to the beach with a young man whom Freddie didn’t know.

From their body language, Freddie could see that Peter’s companion was not a complete stranger. When Peter eventually returned, what finally finished it for Freddie was Peter’s denying that he had been walking along the beach at all.

We were assuredly NOT amused.

And so… Another one bites the dust.

Is it a coincidence that once again at a time of emotional intensity vis-à-vis his creative work, that Freddie also played through the collapse of an emotional relationship with a lover? Were Freddie’s creative achievements highlighted or enabled by emotional upset? Over the period of years I knew him, there were many intense emotional moments. It was almost as though Freddie needed these surges of passion to start his creative juices flowing. There were many times that either because of the high-pressure of work he finished relationships or conversely engineered dramatic rows when he needed the extra boost to his energies whether that was touring or writing.

Thus, the conflict engendered seemed to enhance both his abilities and his work. Sometimes it seemed he needed to have a self-administered injection of emotional pain. A fix, almost. Seeing Peter Morgan walking along with another man caused him sufficient anger to carry him through the super-human requirements which the next few days’ schedule necessitated. I don’t think it helped that Morgan’s companion was far younger and prettier than Freddie. In London it was well-known that Morgan was seeing the dancer Philip Broom-head who was also a friend of Freddie’s. Complicated stuff. It seemed
to be a curse which dogged him, that of his lovers seeming to two-time him with younger and prettier boys. It had been the same with Tony Bastin who, I had discovered after the fact, had been seeing someone I knew, younger and prettier. Although Freddie might have allowed himself to be unfaithful, others were not allowed that privilege.

Whatever. Peter Morgan was on the next flight back to London and thence to resume his job as a bouncer at the Heaven nightclub. I didn’t feel too sorry for him. Of all Freddie’s lovers in my experience, Peter had had the most lavished upon him in terms of travel. The previous Christmas, because of constant arguments with Freddie, he had been flown in and out of New York on Concorde at least three times. If only he could have been a little more kind. But, having said that, he finally misbehaved at a very convenient time to enable Freddie to erupt creatively on those South American stages.

The way Freddie functioned follows the long trail of genius born from pain. Anger is the furnace which forges genius but it is also one of the fuels which drives the whole process of creativity forward. A prime example being that of Beethoven, who while having written so much amazing music being able to hear, composed some of his best work after going deaf. I’m sure he wasn’t pleased. And of course there were the last songs that Freddie wrote…

The next city on the Gluttons tour was Rosario, still in Argentina. Not too much to say about Rosario out of the ordinary except that the gig was as extraordinary an event as Buenos Aires had been. Not as large an audience, a mere thirty-five thousand!

We returned for one further show in Buenos Aires before flying down to Rio where Freddie had a much-welcomed break. We were in Rio for eleven days where we stayed at the Sheraton, outside Rio itself to keep a low profile as a gig had been cancelled. The band were not performing due to restrictive legislation concerning the Maracana Stadium, considered football’s holiest shrine. So, Freddie didn’t do much his first time in Rio, in fact very little at all. It sounds strange now, writing this, that there we were in one of the most exciting cities in the world and yet ‘nothing happened’.

In any event, Freddie had to rest up before performing in front of two of the largest crowds ever, at the Morumbi Stadium in Sao Paolo. The audiences on the twentieth and twenty-first of March totalled more than two hundred and fifty thousand. As ever, Freddie always
responded to the audience and what an audience! It took hours following the shows for Freddie to come down. But the first leg was over and it had been a triumph.

The second leg was scheduled for later in the year. We returned after the first recordings for
Hot Space
had been completed. This included the track ‘Under Pressure’ which began life during a twenty-four hour session in Montreux, Switzerland which was the only day David Bowie was available. Then Freddie worked more on it and took the results to New York where he and Bowie completed it in a further session.

On September 15, rehearsals took place in New Orleans for the second leg of the Gluttons For Punishment tour but after arriving in Venezuela on September 21 for concerts in Caracas only three of the five scheduled concerts were completed on September 25, 26 and 27 at the Polyedro de Caracas, due to the inconsiderate demise of that country’s President Betancourt. It took a great deal of very quick thinking to get all the passports back so that we could leave before Venezuela closed for a period of national mourning. It had been hoped to return to Brazil for a concert in Rio de Janeiro…

It was then on to Mexico where we did a show in Monterey on October 9 at the Estadion Universitano. We returned to the United States on October 11 but were back for two shows at the Estadion Cuahtermoc on October 16 and 17 in the regional city of Pueblo.

It was a nerve-racking time because it was at this show that fans were throwing batteries and various other rubble at the band on stage including a metal bolt which I still have and at which Freddie is pictured pointing rather dolefully in the Queen/Gluttons For Punishment book commemorating the South American experience. I have no memory of the fans being angry. I think the missiles were merely a rather odd expression of their appreciation.

We then went on to Canada to perform three auditorium shows in Montreal which were specifically designed to be filmed for the ‘We Will Rock You’ concert video as it was less costly to film in Canada than America.