that we just happened to have lying around.
We then called the local FM rock radio station and got directly to the DJ on air, where a conversation about our activities in the hotel was conducted – live. Being a decent bloke, he broadcast that, if any like-minded young ladies were up for some fun with the Queen crew, they should get over to the Holiday Inn.
After dispatching our perplexed cabbie with a tip and a pass for the next day’s show, we ran a hot bath to dissolve the jello. When this act of physics was accomplished, the young lady jumped in, lay down and relaxed, and we all waited for it to solidify.
Not a story my mum would be very proud of, and I’m sure she would not have been at all impressed with me on my 21st birthday, which was celebrated on US soil. On 23 January 1976, at the Holiday Inn in Waterbury Connecticut, I received ‘the key of the door’ and a whole lot more. We were in the midst of a hard east coast winter and deep, drifting snow surrounded the hotel and Palace Theatre where rehearsals for the forthcoming US tour were taking place. Everybody, including Queen, were staying at the Holiday Inn – the best hotel Waterbury had to offer. I’m not sure what Fred thought of it as he skipped in and out of the venue and hotel in his short fur jacket and skin-tight satin trousers. The crew wore thermals. Brian, as always in those days, wore his clogs and I saw him slipping and sliding around in them as he walked around a sporty two-seater Volvo P1800S – just like Simon Templar drove in the TV series The Saint . Brian had a car just like it back in London – albeit in a different colour. This car belonged to Chuck, one of the American lighting crew, and he and Brian chatted in the cold about their mutual love of this model of car.
As the baby of the crew, I was used to being the brunt of practical jokes and for my 21st I feared the worst. In the end, I played all the jokes on myself.
In the hotel bar, I was treated to many large brandy and ginger ales. I rarely drank in those days and was soon well away, heckling the solo guitarist playing country cover songs in the corner: ‘OI, MATE! How about playing “Close To The Edge” by Yes! Come on! D’ya know it?’
The smirking crew fed more fuel to my fire and it was not long before my face met the carpet and I was escorted to bed by Crystal, my room mate.
Having passed out in an alcoholic haze, I woke a few hours later to be horribly sick over the side of the bed. I then spent an awful torrid night, tossing, turning and nursing a splitting headache, sprawled all over the regulation Holiday Inn king-size bed, the bed clothes pulled out and strewn everywhere.
The high nylon content of carpets in American hotels was notorious for creating static electricity and, when you wereconnected to metal, by either putting your key in the door lock or pressing the button for the elevator – whack! You got a nasty snap of raw electricity that you could distinctly see as a blue or white spark.
I had been rolling around in anguish, with one foot out of the bed, dragging on the shag pile. As I turned over yet again, my foot came up and hit the metal bed frame – BANG! A huge bolt of static launched me out of bed right into the area where I had been sick. All rather unpleasant.
I crawled into the shower to clean myself up. There is no doubt this was the worst I had ever felt in my life. Despite clearing some of the mess up, the guilt of having to face the maids who cleaned the room compounded how dreadful I felt. I tentatively made my way down to the coffee shop to be met by a broadside from my grinning peers.
‘So what’s it like to be 21, eh, Ratty?’
‘Fucking awful,’ was all I could muster.
‘Come on, have a glass of milk. It’ll settle your stomach.’
The waitress came over and asked at maximum decibels: ‘What can I get yoooh, huuhnneeee?’
‘Just a glass of milk – NOT half and half – and my youth back please,’ I
We then called the local FM rock radio station and got directly to the DJ on air, where a conversation about our activities in the hotel was conducted – live. Being a decent bloke, he broadcast that, if any like-minded young ladies were up for some fun with the Queen crew, they should get over to the Holiday Inn.
After dispatching our perplexed cabbie with a tip and a pass for the next day’s show, we ran a hot bath to dissolve the jello. When this act of physics was accomplished, the young lady jumped in, lay down and relaxed, and we all waited for it to solidify.
Not a story my mum would be very proud of, and I’m sure she would not have been at all impressed with me on my 21st birthday, which was celebrated on US soil. On 23 January 1976, at the Holiday Inn in Waterbury Connecticut, I received ‘the key of the door’ and a whole lot more. We were in the midst of a hard east coast winter and deep, drifting snow surrounded the hotel and Palace Theatre where rehearsals for the forthcoming US tour were taking place. Everybody, including Queen, were staying at the Holiday Inn – the best hotel Waterbury had to offer. I’m not sure what Fred thought of it as he skipped in and out of the venue and hotel in his short fur jacket and skin-tight satin trousers. The crew wore thermals. Brian, as always in those days, wore his clogs and I saw him slipping and sliding around in them as he walked around a sporty two-seater Volvo P1800S – just like Simon Templar drove in the TV series The Saint . Brian had a car just like it back in London – albeit in a different colour. This car belonged to Chuck, one of the American lighting crew, and he and Brian chatted in the cold about their mutual love of this model of car.
As the baby of the crew, I was used to being the brunt of practical jokes and for my 21st I feared the worst. In the end, I played all the jokes on myself.
In the hotel bar, I was treated to many large brandy and ginger ales. I rarely drank in those days and was soon well away, heckling the solo guitarist playing country cover songs in the corner: ‘OI, MATE! How about playing “Close To The Edge” by Yes! Come on! D’ya know it?’
The smirking crew fed more fuel to my fire and it was not long before my face met the carpet and I was escorted to bed by Crystal, my room mate.
Having passed out in an alcoholic haze, I woke a few hours later to be horribly sick over the side of the bed. I then spent an awful torrid night, tossing, turning and nursing a splitting headache, sprawled all over the regulation Holiday Inn king-size bed, the bed clothes pulled out and strewn everywhere.
The high nylon content of carpets in American hotels was notorious for creating static electricity and, when you wereconnected to metal, by either putting your key in the door lock or pressing the button for the elevator – whack! You got a nasty snap of raw electricity that you could distinctly see as a blue or white spark.
I had been rolling around in anguish, with one foot out of the bed, dragging on the shag pile. As I turned over yet again, my foot came up and hit the metal bed frame – BANG! A huge bolt of static launched me out of bed right into the area where I had been sick. All rather unpleasant.
I crawled into the shower to clean myself up. There is no doubt this was the worst I had ever felt in my life. Despite clearing some of the mess up, the guilt of having to face the maids who cleaned the room compounded how dreadful I felt. I tentatively made my way down to the coffee shop to be met by a broadside from my grinning peers.
‘So what’s it like to be 21, eh, Ratty?’
‘Fucking awful,’ was all I could muster.
‘Come on, have a glass of milk. It’ll settle your stomach.’
The waitress came over and asked at maximum decibels: ‘What can I get yoooh, huuhnneeee?’
‘Just a glass of milk – NOT half and half – and my youth back please,’ I
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