Read Online Freddie Mercury by Peter Freestone - Free Book Online Page B

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 alwaysresponded 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.
    Concert video productions designed for retail was a concept still in its infancy. Music videos were of course being made but mainly for promotional purposes on television. This concert film project was another first for Queen.
    This concludes my first and most epic tour with Queen. From here,I’ll try to provide some of the highlights and the lowpoints of the years of the band’s performances that remained.
    At the Hallenstadion gig in Zurich on April 16 and 17, the band stayed in one hotel, the Dolder Grand, a very ritzy affair on one side of the lake, while the rest of us stayed in another, a much more modest affair nearer the stadium. At this point, Freddie and I weren’t sharing the double bedroom suites. This was one of the very few occasions when the band party itself was split up.
    While in Brussels on April 22 and 23, we travelled in the hotel lift with the American track athlete star Carl Lewis. Freddie could hardly contain his excitement. By the time he got to his suite, he was squealing after their exchange of grins. I don’t think that any of us up to that point realised how great was Freddie’s