by Peter Hince
A medical specialist had been immediately summoned from Johannesburg and was on his way by private jet. Fred had never needed that before and there was great concern.
After being eventually allowed into the dressing room to see the patient, there he was in his robe, bouncing around, drinking and chattering away! Fred was enthusing that Queen must make amends by playing a huge show at the national Ellis Park outdoor stadium in Johannesburg. What? This seemed like the normal Fred, upbeat after a good show and a couple of vodkas. Incorrect prognosis; the doctor had administered some type of powerful cortisone injection which gave immediate temporary relief. The steroid took away the pain and inflammation but the inherent problem was bad. Total rest and special climatic conditions in his suite plus further treatment were needed before Fred could sing again.
Voice problems were not new, but this time the problem was extreme and severely aggravated by the dust that blew off the desert and bush. It affects most singers, we were told later. Fred’s good friend Elton John as well.
That wasn’t in the brochure we got, and after Fred received the information I couldn’t print the language he used in any brochure. While recuperating in his suite, which was filled with humidifiers and climatic control devices to aid recovery of his voice, Fred invited me over for a drink. He was spending some of his convalescence listening to music and was raving about Prince and the recently released Purple Rain album. He loved the image Prince had created and thought he was as commercial as Michael Jackson, but with the sexy and edgy appeal of Jimi Hendrix.
He likened some of Prince’s lyrics to Hendrix, citing the song ‘When Doves Cry’. ‘“Dig if you will the picture” – God, I wish I’d written that line – it’s fucking great!’
Watch the voice, Fred …
Due to his strong resolve, Fred recovered well and was able to complete the remaining shows. He rarely took direct advice from any people: a doctor telling him to cut down on his drinking because of damaging his liver? Little chance. A doctor who advised on the future of his wonderful gift of singing? Yes.
The enforced break was very handy for the rest of Queen to fly by private Lear jet to enjoy the lush Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.
During the final show, we had a brief ‘pie fight’ on stage, utilising whipped cream, other dairy products and Spike, Queen’s hired back-up musician. Spike was a keyboard player who also played rhythm guitar on ‘Hammer To Fall’, and was described by somebody in the audience as ‘Who’s that fat roadie who comes on stage and plays guitar?’
An insult to roadies if you ask me.
In the black-out before the encore, one of the band assistants came up to me screaming: ‘Get all that cream and shit cleaned off the stage – Fred is going mad, he keeps slipping and is panicking he will do his knee in again.’
Fred’s voice was fixed but the Mercurial knee ligaments, damaged during some horseplay in a club in Munich before the tour, were still a subject for concern.
Didn’t stop him playing tennis at Sun City though. He was good at that as well. Freddie Mercury was good at pretty much everything he decided to do.
DRINKING WORKS
There were several bars in the Sun City complex, and we drank heavily and for free at the bar in the exclusive Club Prive where the high rollers gambled. All drinks and food in here were gratis and, though we were not gambling, our temporary status of being interesting by association allowed us access. We struck up a good rapport with all the barmen and gave them passes for the shows. But it was access denied on an Access All Areas pass if you were a black barman. Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing too many black people in the audience. Were there any at all, I wonder.
We drank heavily each and every night and would stagger back to our rooms; scaling a wire mesh fence to halve the journey. Occasionally, we were accompanied by some female companions from Birmingham working as croupiers and dealers in the casino. The girls were blessed with conical hairdos that took an entire can of spray to keep them vertical and, combined with strong make-up, their work-issue shiny casino gowns and metallic accessories, it gave them the look of characters from a 1970s Star Trek episode. This was compounded by thick Brummie accents, an extremely alien tongue in warp factor seven.
Seeing them trying to scale the wire fence in their tight evening dresses was hilarious – and impossible. They simply discarded them and clambered over in their underwear and high heels. The sight of an attractive young woman in an indignant pose as she straddles a mesh fence in a skimpy G-string and bra as the blood-red African sun is breaking over the hill was a moving and poetic moment.
To relieve some of the tedium on days off, we took to having early-evening ten-pin bowling sessions with the exception of wardrobe master Tony Williams. Welsh Tony who liked a drink would turn into Mr Hyde, who conveniently forgot what had happened the night before. It was Mr Hyde, not Tony Williams, who was attempting to bowl at an alley in a hotel in Holland some weeks before, and, when his attempt at a strike went directly into the gutter at the side of the lane, Tony, not happy with his effort, punched the neighbouring wall – breaking his hand. After surgery and pinning, he was forced to drink and work with his other hand, so the crew had to thread needles for Shirley, as Fred called Tony, when doing his wardrobe maintenance.
THE DEADLY BUSH
Spending an overnight safari in the game park that surrounded Sun City was great fun, Collie and me setting up the British camp among the fixed site by borrowing Fred’s stage Union Jack flag from the wardrobe case to flutter above our tent.
I woke in the middle of the night to hear all the squeaks, coos, squawks and scary noises you heard in Tarzan movies. But Collie certainly didn’t look like Jane – his leopard skin underpants excepted, and even by the romantic light from the oil lamp.
Now there are many dangerous things lurking out in the bush but the most lethal of all, and a proven killer according to our guide, was a stationary threat: rhino shit!
Apparently, the rhinos like to relieve themselves on the tracks running through the bush and this considerable deposit turns rock hard very quickly under the baking-hot African sun. Safari jeeps come hurtling down these tracks, hit the deadly camouflaged piles, causing vehicles to turn over. That ain’t in the insurance policy, even in the disclaimer small print: ‘Loss of life, limb or eye due to rhino shit’.
We were then taken into pens of large cats – small lions, followed by big cheetah that had all been given research code numbers except for one who was called Nigel! I kept at a good distance, as they were a bit frisky those rascals, I can tell you!
There were other forms of healthy, sporting entertainment on offer: several swimming pools, tennis courts and a golf course. The Americans in the crew were always keen and some would take their clubs around on tour, stashed in the equipment cases. The golf course itself had a major handicap: SNAKES. There were many types slithering around the rough and bunkers and in particular spitting cobras.
These tricky little reptiles were infamous around Sun City and had claimed several victims. So bearing the warnings in mind, Joe Trovato, Queen’s American lighting designer, set off with some of his fellow countrymen to play a round. Unfortunately, Joe had been up most of the previous evening getting hammered in the bar and was feeling very, very delicate indeed.
The Queen Crew Open arrived at the first tee, where by now Joe was greener than the surrounding fairway. Taking a club from his black caddy, he stepped up to tee off. Swinging the club high he brought it forward with great effort and this physiological reaction caused his imbalanced, depleted body to immediately throw up and shit itself simultaneously. Joe had now turned from sickly green, to as white as a sheet and bright red with embarrassment – the correct national colours for somebody of Italian descent. He was wrapped in a towel by the trusty caddy and escorted back to his room.
None of Queen played golf, neither did us Brits in the crew, so Collie and I escaped from Sun City to have a look around the local area. John Deacon let us
borrow the car allocated for him to be driven the few yards from his villa to the stage door of the Super Bowl arena. We set off southward in this top-of-the-range BMW for Rustenberg, the nearest town on the road to Jo’burg.
Though we were probably in no real danger in Rustenberg, the vibe was not right and we cut short our excursion, driving back to the white sanctity of Fort Sun City. But I was no longer white – I was turning lobster red from underestimating the African sun. Topped off by streaks of hair colour (fashionable at the time) that were bleached blond, yellow, red and blue I began to resemble a parrot. Pretty Polly– Pretty Polly – Pretty Peter. My job was something I could now do virtually parrot fashion, for a handful of seeds tossed in my feed bowl.
MONEY AND DIAMOND WORKS
Thankfully, none of us were serious gamblers as there were many ways to lose your handful of seeds in the Sun City casino or on the avenues of slot machines that promised ‘More Rand In Your Hand’. The South African unit of currency was restricted at the time and not at all easily exchanged. Deals for Queen shows were almost exclusively done in US dollars, but the promoters would have to supply local currency for petty cash expenses. So what to do with all the spare and almost worthless per diem you had at the end of our Sun City trip?
Spend it all? But on what? Even the airport duty free wanted the Yankee Dollar, Pound Sterling or Deutschmark. Gold Krugerrands or diamonds bought from the major South African jewellers, who had a large presence in Sun City, were the popular choices of trinkets to take home and keep the girlfriend happy – or put away for a rainy day. The best deal for diamonds, though, was from the independent ‘Mr X’ (I just can’t remember his name and I’m sure he’s glad about that).
Mr X was a contact of the house crew at Sun City, coming up to shows from Johannesburg and dealing direct with visiting bands and crews wanting to buy loose diamonds. Prior to a show, Mr X arrived and was ushered backstage into the tuning room. This special room was often used for doing deals with local suppliers of illicit goods and, though it was an area used to having rocks of cocaine laid out, the rocks Mr X had were size-for-size far more valuable.
The individual who shuffled in looked most unlike a diamond dealer in his ‘train spotter’s’ anorak, shapeless trousers and slip-on shoes. A dishevelled middle-aged man with a bad case of greasy comb-over, who looked like he would offer sweets to youngsters outside the school gates. Over his shoulder was a cheap imitation-leather airline bag which he unzipped, and pulled out reams of folded tissue paper stuffed with diamonds of all levels of the four Cs: carat, colour, clarity and cut.
He seemed nervous, but we assured him he was perfectly safe as he was on hallowed territory in the tuning room. The deals were done and much more favourably than at the other jewellers, who Mr X did not speak too kindly of. Nor did certain wealthy people when having their purchases valued for insurance back in England…
The tuning room was a very special place and only very few select people were invited in and signs posted outside warned off any posers, liggers, agents, lawyers and such like. You might be important enough to fleetingly get into Queen’s dressing room but never into the tuning room, unless invited by one of Queen’s personal crew. It was our den and secret hideaway.
‘Can you come and check the power in the tuning room?’ loosely translated to: ‘let’s go and have a toot’. Also known as attitude application check.
The tuning room trunk was a small flight case that housed the guitar strobe tuners, compact Fender Champ amp, voltage transformers and an inflatable airbed. The case was fitted with specially made, secure allen key locks and was also used to store any valuables during the day or overnight. As it was one of the first things to go into the truck at load out, the trunk was used to transfer plastic bags of currency on occasions when carrying large amounts of cash around or through customs was risky, not strictly allowed or impractical. The airbed was pumped up and laid out for the sole use of John Deacon, who believed strongly in the recuperative powers of rest and sleep at the right time. It was also a calm haven for him, away from the dramas of the dressing room. As I was John’s roadie, he let me use the air bed too; providing I gave him details afterwards…
I also used the tuning room to chill out, service and clean John’s and Fred’s guitars and change their strings. A new set of strings would be stretched in every three or four shows, about the same interval that most of the crew changed their socks. The tuning room was a place I could hide away and hone my own guitar skills and try to sound impressive to people passing the closed door. Maybe there’s a musician inside? No, most definitely not. But a solid electric guitar is a very seductive toy, a powerful, dangerous and tempting icon to hold in your hands. It can make a bigger noise than you can – instantly. It’s great! The volume control on an electric guitar is the extension of your pent-up expression.
Shame I can’t really play.
The tuning room was a good place to entertain or smuggle girls into, while we found passes for them. Fortunately, I didn’t try to serenade them with my guitar playing or they may have left, backstage pass or not. Queen tour passes and their use of the female form were always a talking point from the Jazz tour onwards; with a fat-bottomed naked girl on a bicycle, to the final Magic tour with another girl’s bottom on a stool, with animated characters of the band dancing underneath, which portrayed the deep message of filling stadiums by ‘putting bums on seats’.
Spare laminated passes, and those issued to unknown personnel prior to the tour, were put in the name of John Doe or Jane Doe, the names given by police departments in the US for unidentified dead bodies. The Works tour that took in Sun City spawned revolutionary aluminium passes and luggage tags, the metal in keeping with the industrial feel of the stage set. The passes featured a rotating spanking machine administering a few whacks to a young female construction worker, and the inscription on the side instructed: ‘use this edge’. What for? Tour passes had evolved from just having long hair and saying: ‘It’s OK, mate – I’m with the band’ into a high-security operation of varying levels of authorisation.
However, soon I wouldn’t need a pass to access my working life any more. Decisions had been made. I’d had a look at another glossy career brochure.
Always read the small print.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I THOUGHT IT WAS ALL OVER
(ALMOST)
There are four seasons, four corners of the earth, four horsemen of the apocalypse and four musicians in Queen. I’d been there, seen ’em all and done it – and got several T-shirts.
Musicians will tell you there are four beats in a bar – and I had done plenty of beats in many bars. Maybe too many.
It was time to go, time to move on.
Prior to The Works European tour, which had merged into the Sun City trip, I decided I’d had enough of living the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle – I wanted a proper job. Sort of.
My decision to leave Queen was formulated over a period of time and there was no particular incident or reason that prompted me to give up a life of rock ’n’ roll. Despite having a top job with one of the world’s biggest bands, I wanted something else to stimulate and satisfy myself, and that was not to work for another band, irrespective of the generous offers I received.
This was Maggie Thatcher’s 1980s when there was supposedly ‘loads of money’ around, but the financial rewards of working for Queen were certainly no reason to stay on, as they had a reputation within the industry for not paying their people the highest rates. Around the time of the recording of The Works album in 1984, I knew that I was becoming mentally and physically fried as I was working harder than ever. Loyalty can sometimes become a frailty, and, as there was no real opportunity or desire to further myself within the Queen organisation, I decided the time was right to leave and I would go out while at the top of my profession.
I was also becoming disillusioned with the changing music industry and had reached the point where I felt strongly that I needed change in order to satis
fy my inner self.
For a long time I knew I wanted to become a photographer, it’s what I really loved doing, what excited and inspired me. However, I would still be jumping into unknown territory and would have to rely on my limited knowledge of the photography world, a bit of talent, a lot of belief and the experience, professionalism and resilience I had accumulated in the music business.
Being head of the crew for Queen gave me confidence in my abilities and the belief that I could go on and do other things, and succeed. Although it was just a job to me, later on I realised what an important position I held and how good I was at my job. But I also knew my limitations.
I gave notice and left the fulltime payroll as an employee of Queen Productions Ltd in January 1985, having just turned 30. I had always made a promise to myself to get out of the music business before I was 30 and more or less kept that.
My decision to leave Queen was filtered through during tour rehearsals in Munich. I had previously discussed it with the few people I trusted and respected; the others found out by default.
I really wanted to tell Fred personally but surprisingly it was hard. Sometimes, despite our close relationship, Fred was very difficult to approach or to get him alone at the right moment. The situation to do it never quite arose. He was never on his own, in the right mood or in the right place.
‘Fred, can I have a word?’
‘Later, dear, later.’
I think he was trying to avoid the issue, as, despite being a strong-willed, bold man who would take on any challenge, Fred occasionally dismissed certain things and pushed them aside, hoping they would go away.