Queen Unseen

by Peter Hince

  A small bag of necessities was kept in our bunks, with our main luggage stashed in the bay under the bus. Twelve drunken, sweaty males sleeping in a confined space highlighted the need for pine-scented air fresheners and fully open roof vents. Leaving your socks and footwear out was taboo, as was dumping in the toilet (the chemically tinged smell never really leaves). Good bunk positions were claimed with the same fervour as German holidaymakers putting towels on sun loungers at dawn. Lower bunks (away from the toilet) were better, being closer to the centre of gravity, and didn’t sway around like the top ones. It was advisable to sleep with your feet facing the front, unless you wanted a neck injury when the bus braked sharply. There were no electric trouser presses onboard, you would simply put all your smelly clothes at the end of your bunk, opposite your head. Removing your clothes on a fast-moving vehicle while tired and drunk or stoned is tricky, and a dozen guys of varying size and shape preparing for bed like this is funnier than any West End farce.

  When undressing, it was like the scene in the showers after a sports event, catching a sly glance to see how you measured up against the others. The British guys sported colourful hipster briefs or Marks & Spencer’s pants. The Americans, however, were very conservative in their choice of undergarment, which was reminiscent of what your granddad wore. The US ‘smalls’ were not. They were an ample, white(ish) garment, often thermal, with heavy stitching. This was the first time I had witnessed underpants with the waistband so highly cut that they could pass as polo necks. No wonder they found it hard attracting the opposite sex.

  A skill that had to be quickly mastered was ‘bus surfing’; keeping your balance in the central corridor as the bus lurched towards our destination. Any change in speed could propel you into the walls, door well or windscreen. Another skill was to pee into the toilet of a bus that’s hurtling down the highway, where aim was vital. All men know the feeling of a full bladder in the early morning, when your todger is a far different fellow to the acorn you went to sleep with. It has developed a mind and size independent of your wishes. Staggering into the bathroom, you prop yourself with one hand against the wall while the other holds something you are now proud of. ‘But please go down a bit – will you?’ Too painful to bend it, you wait and hold it in, till the angle is achievable and release – OH… NO! It’s sprayed all up the lid and seat and over the floor and – did I hit the wall as well? Imagine this feat on a moving bus…

  The Bus Monster: A mythical beast that materialised in the depths of the night and got you. The result of the attack was a dry mouth, sore eyes, bunged-up nose, stiff body, sluggishness and a total lack of spark. You felt absolutely dreadful. The monster mainly attacked during the first few journeys of a tour as you adjusted to living in this unorthodox manner once again. To counter disturbed sleep, I had legally obtained a large tub of 5 mg Valium tranquillisers, and would dole them out to people, giving a Churchillian V sign.

  ‘Oooh, Matron – is it “V” time?’

  ‘To the power of five or ten?’

  ‘I’ll be a devil – to the power of 15.’

  ‘Nurse – the screens!’

  Brian, Roger and John each took up our challenge to spend an overnight trip on the crew bus (once – and with their minder in tow). Fred was always promising, but sadly never did. I’m sure it would have been a lot of fun. Fred certainly liked his fun; he liked to laugh and he definitely enjoyed life.

  ‘Ratty, do you have any rolls of gaffer tape? I need to take some to the hotel.’

  ‘Of course, Fred, a case full – do you want black or white?’

  ‘Oh – black! Definitely black.’

  ‘No problem, is it to fix your suitcase or something?’

  ‘Uuuh – no…’ he cackles.

  We used gaffer tape (black) to rig up curtains for privacy on our first US tour bus, which was basic and noisy with roughly converted metal army bunks. At this time, wardrobe mistress/master ‘Dashing Dane Clark’, an ex-dancer from Las Vegas travelled (rather quietly) with the crew. His bunk was directly below mine where notes would be left. Not by my hand, I add! ‘Hi, Dane, come up and see me some time, love Ratty.’ No response. We all got on well with Dane, and he would cut the crew’s hair on days off.

  I once spent a tense night on that bus wondering if I was going to turn into a hairdresser or dancer, due to a pill I had taken. ‘Who’s up for some of these? They’re really great,’ someone had said. Being young and foolhardy I had popped one of the tablets. The laughter immediately started, as I’d taken female hormone pills and spent a lonely night lying on my back, regularly checking my nipples for growth.

  For a trip from Vancouver, down the west coast of Canada to Seattle Washington – just across the border in the USA, we were travelling in a substitute vehicle – a standard Greyhound-type of bus. It was an early-morning run and we were all dead tired and there were no beds or areas to lie down on, just cramped upright seats to try to get some rest in. Dick ‘Dirt Ball’ Ollet, our technical guru, was feeling particularly delicate that morning, so he crawled up into the overhead luggage rack and flaked out. It was only after passing through immigration into America that we realised he was still up there. Dick was British and living in Los Angeles at the time, on a special type of US exchange visa. Unfortunately, as he had no US entry stamp to balance his exit stamp to Canada, he was in the eyes of the US immigration still in Canada and not residing on American soil. He would now have to re-enter the United States – but without leaving…

  NEW FRONTIERS

  Europe didn’t generally give us those particular types of cross-border visa issues, and European bus drivers were resourceful and experienced. However, occasionally you were concerned by who was at the wheel. In the middle of the night, when the bus is parked on the side of the autobahn and the driver sitting at the wheel holding a joint in one hand and studying an upside-down German Falkplan map through tinted sunglasses, the term ‘right man for the job?’ might come to mind.

  After driving all night and for most of the next day, all you want is to get into the hotel, desperate for a night in a bed that does not move, with sheets that do not resemble corrugated card. Approaching the outskirts of a city, hope springs eternal that shortly you will be having a refreshing shower, swim or drink in the bar. But still that naughty hotel could be elusive. Spotting it in the distance we would shout: ‘Quick – after it, before it gets away.’ Our driver then decided the best ploy would be not to drive directly to the hotel, but circle it a few times, then sneak up and take it by surprise.

  Despite the rabble of passengers on board, travelling through European borders on a bus was relatively simple: leave all the passports with the driver while we slept, with the added sweeteners of records and T-shirts being displayed on the dashboard, if required. But this didn’t work when travelling the ‘corridor’ between old East Germany and West Berlin, that decadent island in the middle of communism. This journey was always at night, and if asleep you were abruptly awoken by a machine gun thrust through the curtains of your bunk. Guten Morgen! The East German border guard would study your passport and visa closely, before taking them away to be processed. This procedure could take any amount of time, so the bus remained stationary, as did we, in vast hangar buildings covered in mirrors and lit by reams of fluorescent tube lighting that cast a sickly green mist. Once while we waited, an open-back truck full of Christmas trees was being searched, the guards plunging long metal spikes into the trees at random and waiting for the screams. Happy Christmas, comrades.

  My 24th birthday was on a show day in Hanover and the birthday evening was spent on the tour bus going through the bleak grimness and bitter cold of January in East Germany, on our way to decadent West Berlin. Brian May had wished me happy birthday and asked if I was having a party… With an extra six pack of beer and some cheese and onion rolls onboard the bus, we were enjoying celebrating my birthday so much we didn’t realise we had reached the border. The guards strutted on board to witness us watching the climax to a
video. No, no that type, it was The Dirty Dozen. It was probably not the best choice of film, as Allied troops were about to wipe out the German HQ with grenades, machine guns and heavy hand-to-hand fighting.

  The summer choice of gig in West Berlin was the Waldbuhne which means ‘stage in a wood’ – which is exactly what it was. The Waldbuhne was an outdoor venue where the stage and covering were a permanent fixture but the audience was seated in the open air. This old amphitheatre venue was built at the time of the infamous 1936 Olympic Games, and located behind the main Olympic stadium. It is recorded that the painter and decorator Adolf Hitler gave many speeches at the Waldbuhne. The construction had a narrow concrete tunnel that ran from the edge of the wooded area to the back of the stage, which was the access for the gear, and where Adolf used to arrive in secret, appearing magically and seemingly from nowhere he would glide on stage. Positioned in the walls on the sides of the stage were slits, and steps below them were where snipers would sit and watch the crowd for troublemakers and opposers of the man with the moustache’s new Reich. The whole place had an odd atmosphere and in summer was particularly hot and humid, and plagued by mosquitoes. Tony, the wardrobe man, and first aid kit holder, bought lots of cans of spray repellent and tubs of cream to soothe our exposed legs and arms. After sundown when the powerful lights in Queen’s rig came on, it was a magnet for squadrons of flying insects and creepy crawlies to come out of their lairs in the dark forest – and descend on the stage. Fred was not amused to find a large moth he later described as ‘the size of a fucking pterodactyl’ spluttering in his drink on top of the piano – particularly as he almost drank it!

  An American crew member on his first visit to Germany remarked, ‘Gee this Ausfahrt place must be real big ’cos all the exits from the autobahn have a sign for it.’

  Another time, approaching the Scottish border, we told him to be ready to get off the bus with his passport (the immigration office being a motorway service station). Europe’s diversity confused him from the moment he arrived:

  ‘How are you enjoying England?’

  ‘Its real neat, but I can’t understand the money.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’re off to Sweden in a couple of days.’

  ‘So what money do they have in Sweden, is it dollars or pounds?’

  ‘No, it’s their own currency: Swedish krona.’

  ‘Ah… so I should change it all as I go round?’

  ‘No just change what you need, we don’t stay long in most places.’

  ‘So after Sweden it’s Denmark, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what they got there, dollars or pounds?’

  ‘No, krone.’

  ‘I see, they have Swedish krona?’

  ‘No, no, no it’s Danish krone. It’s a different country, then we go to Germany where they use deutschmarks.’

  ‘Not dollars or pounds?’

  ‘No…’

  ‘Boy, this stuff is really confusing.’

  All European money was collectively known as Local Drachma or Drinking Vouchers and any loose change was Shrapnel.

  The only ‘foreign’ experience our American previously had was crossing the border by bus on the west coast between Canada and the US, where we were interrogated by The Fruit Police.

  ‘You will surrender all apples, oranges and bananas immediately and place them in the designated bins.’

  ‘Yes, officer.’

  ‘And those grapes – don’t you try and hide anything from us!’

  I believe it was five years’ hard labour in Alcatraz for secreting a pineapple.

  YOUR PAPERS PLEASE (YOU’RE NICKED!)

  Queen’s personal crew were sometimes given the option of fly-drive on European tours and a nice roomy Mercedes. Crossing from Belgium into France in the middle of the night, we found ourselves stopped by French border officials. Suspicious? Possibly? A top-of-the-range white Mercedes with registration plates from Zurich driven by me, a dishevelled, unshaven and wide-eyed mess, directly from the show in Dortmund. The passengers were Jobby, a most unhealthy-looking individual with a Canadian passport; Mr Modern, a gangly youth with a scowl, strange haircut and British passport; and finally alongside me in the front passenger seat was Angelika, my German girlfriend from Munich.

  ‘C’est bon, mate? Can we allez?’ I quip.

  ‘Non!’

  The peak-capped French officers searched the car thoroughly, pulling all the carpets up and tapping door panels as if they were sending some sort of Gallic Morse code – or maybe honing a sense of rhythm? Nothing. Rien.

  ‘C’est bon – now?’

  ‘Non!’

  We dragged our luggage into their office under yellow lights that made our tired, drawn faces look even worse than we felt. Despite the car’s paperwork, and my licence and our passports all being in order, the French still insisted on searching our luggage. They quickly zipped up my bag. A handy tip: always put your dirty laundry on top, as only the hardiest will get past the barrier of roadie’s old pants and socks, jeans that can walk alone and two-tone T shirts that are a distinctly different colour under the arms from that of the body.

  Searching my girlfriend’s bags, they pulled her clothes roughly out, and she frowned, but, when they started handling her lingerie and intimate smalls, she let loose with an unrelenting torrent of abuse in German. We were given a dismissive shrug and waved away. Angelika growled in her Bavarian accent about those ‘Fucking Französiche Aschlöcher!’ as we sped down the autoroute to Paris. Who was I to disagree?

  A Ford Granada is not quite as grand as a Mercedes and does not fit through the sliding glass entrance doors of the Dragonara Hotel in Edinburgh – no matter how hard I tried. A party was thrown after the first show on the outskirts of Edinburgh and as normal involved strippers, audience participation and copious amounts of alcohol. The highlight of the evening was seeing a member of the legal profession tied to a chair, stripped and administered with whipped cream and overweight stripper’s flesh.

  After quite a bit of drinking, I stupidly drove back the short distance to the Dragonara Hotel, the car’s sunroof being handy for dispensing the empty champagne bottles on route. (‘There’s no need to be gentle – it’s a rental.’)

  Upon our return, as we tried to put the Granada into the lobby ‘showroom’, there were screams and sounds of breaking glass from Fred’s suite as he and Bill, his chubby companion from New Jersey, were having a bit of a tiff.

  That was not unusual.

  Drunken driving is an inexcusable offence, but fortunately we and millions of others have got away with it – thank God nobody got hurt. But there is still no justification for it at all – even in Ireland, where everybody drinks.

  Ireland, the Emerald Isle, home to mystical castles, leprechauns and rented Japanese mini-vans – for the little people.

  Arriving in Dublin after a delayed flight from Zurich, we had all been enjoying the craic from the free booze on board. I approached the car rental desk and explained that I was not the person in whose name the mini-van was booked, but honestly I really was the one authorised to pick it up. This posed no problem and neither did my out-of-date Californian driver’s licence or state of inebriation. I then enquired whether there was a minibar in the mini-van and what side of the road would they like me to drive on while in Ireland. No problem at all.

  Show day, sober, and on our way to Slane Castle we were stopped at a roadblock by the Irish Garda. I wound down the window and the grinning policeman squeaked: ‘Mornin’ to ye lads, are yus off tuh the concert?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fine, so where’s the stuff, then?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The stuuuhfff, where is it then, where d’ya have it?’

  We can have some fun here.

  ‘Sorry – what exactly do you mean?’

  ‘The stuuuhff – ye know drooogghs – we’re the drooogggh squad.’

  ‘Oh I see… the, the stuff. No, very sorry we don’t have any, we are workin
g at the show.’

  We flashed our passes.

  ‘Ah, I see now, but are yuh shore yuh don’t have any stuuuhff?’

  ‘No, we’re sure to be sure.’

  ‘OK then, lads – good day to yuh all.’

  With a salute we were allowed on our way. We didn’t have any ‘stuff’. Only a pint or two of the black stuff.

  In the 1970s, having long hair and being in a vehicle that you probably couldn’t afford was like a beacon to the British police. The brand-new rented VW minibus I was a passenger in was stopped by Somerset’s finest. I panicked slightly and, before the cops approached, quickly downed the contents of a plastic container where I kept my stash. I swallowed the speed tablets but the joke ‘Dracula’ blood capsules that were also in the container remained lodged in my mouth. As the police started asking the usual questions the capsules started to melt and fake blood began trickling to the corners of my mouth. Seeing this, some of my fellow passengers started to giggle, and brought me to the attention of the cop.

  ‘What’s wrong with your mate? He looks pale – and bleeding?’

  ‘Uuh – just had a tooth out,’ somebody replied.

  I didn’t sleep at all that night, and ended up in a local nurses’ home, being nursed.

  DRUG RUNNER

  The tour bus was a necessity in America but regulations delayed its introduction in Europe, so in the distant days of autumn 1975 for the UK Night At The Opera tour, Queen and crew had a standard coach each to travel around Britain. During a day off travelling to Dundee from Newcastle, we got a surprise when the coach was flagged over to the roadside and plain-clothes police ran on shouting: ‘Drug squad! Everybody hands on your heads – now!’

  They were no doubt looking for the ‘stuff’.