Mercury

Whilst Elaine falls a bit short in my love of Prog Rock, our musical tastes have been known to overlap. Back in 1986, just a couple of months after we got married, we had a trip to London and took in a concert at Wembley Stadium. A number of bands were performing – I seem to remember Status Quo were doing their fifteenth farewell tour and performed a set as part of it. INXS had also popped over from Australia, treating us to some antipodean rock. However, the only reason we, and a hundred thousand other people had congregated on the venerable old stadium in a, not particularly lovely suburb of the capital, was to see Queen. Not The Queen, no this Queen had no need for the definite article to precede it. Queen was a rock band and by 1986 it was arguably the biggest rock band on the planet. Whilst definitely part of the Rock family, Queen are hard to pigeonhole. The music they produced had hints of metal, prog, glam and many other sub-genre’s you  may care to mention. They even side tracked into disco and were influenced by classical so all in all, they had a pretty unique style. As album sales will attest, it was very popular despite the fact that with the punk ‘revolution’ of the late seventies, Queen became mightily uncool along with other stadium rock bands. So it was that we, along with all those other uncool people, got ready to enjoy the headline band on that July evening.

From 1971 to 1991, Queen consisted of the same four members. John Deacon was the bass player, Roger Taylor the drummer, Brian May the guitarist and Freddie Mercury, vocalist and pianist. Mercury was an extraordinary character. Born Farouk Bulsara in Zanzibar to Indian Parsi parents, his huge overbite, caused by an extra set of molars, gave him a distinctive appearance and, he claimed, his huge vocal range. It is his personality as much as his teeth, however, that stood out. It was certainly evident at that concert. He had 100,000 people in the palm of his hands for the entire two hours. I’ve seen other rock stars control the audience but none have been quite so good at it as Mercury. Unfortunately the tour of which that concert was part of was to be Mercury’s last. The following year he was diagnosed as having AIDS and his health failed over the next few years. He died in November 1991at the age of 45.

Last night we went to see the film Bohemian Rhapsody. This was a biopic of Queen from when Mercury met May and Taylor in 1970 to the band’s performance in the Live Aid concert of 1985. To be more precise it was a biopic of Mercury. The other band members were superbly portrayed by Gwilym Lee (May), Ben Hardy (Taylor) and Joseph Mazzello (Deacon) but as in real life, Mercury took centre stage. Rami Malek was cast in the role of Mercury. Being an American of Egyptian extraction, Malik was utterly convincing as an Englishman whose roots lie from beyond that country’s shores. The original choice to play Mercury had been Sacha Baron Cohen but ‘artistic differences’ saw him leave the project before it had really got started. Thank goodness for that. I can only imagine Cohen would murder the character. Malik brought him back to life. Mercury was a complex character, supremely confident on the outside, terribly insecure on the inside. He desperately needed love but seemed unable to give it in return and it took him many years to come to terms with his sexuality. Once he did he embarked on the ultimate hedonistic lifestyle that never seemed to bring him any satisfaction and ultimately hastened his demise. Yet despite all this he would come alive when on stage in front of thousands of people. This was brought home throughout the film but climaxed at the Live Aid concert where Queen’s twenty minute set was stole a show that included such rock giants as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, U2 and The Who. The cinematography of that concert was, and I can’t think of another word here, amazing.

I will not go into finer detail about the film – you will just have to go and see it. I’m not claiming to be an authority on the subject as despite liking the music I would not put myself into the uber-fan category. I’m aware that the film is not totally factual. I noticed that some of the songs were performed at a time in the movie before they would had been released in real life. Also, the EMI executive Ray Foster, played by Mike Myers in a nod to his promotion of the song Bohemian Rhapsody in the film Wayne’s World, appears to have been a made up character. Artistic licence was also in evidence when Mercury informed his bandmates of his AIDS diagnosis on the eve of Live Aid when in fact it he got the news two years later. Whilst things like this make you question the rest of the film I have to say that with my limited knowledge and having done a little investigation, the story was entirely believable. It was a good film. Go and see it. Unless you are cool of course. Some media movie reviewers are cool and didn’t think much of it. Sod them.

Thirty-two years ago Elaine and I left Wembley Stadium having been thoroughly entertained by Freddie Mercury and the other members of Queen. What had been our first time was also our last. There are many tribute acts, some of whom are very good, but there will never be another Freddie Mercury, the ultimate showman. Perhaps it is just as well.