Wow. 25 years has passed so quickly. To think today he would be a survivor and we’d still be enthralled by him.

A couple of pieces from Huffington Post inc one from Brian May

http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/uk_5836c7e6e4b0ddedcf5c3f76

http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/11863672

Has anyone told Saxonrider?

Has anyone told Saxonrider?

😀

I loved Freddie…he was a one off that’s for sure. But at least we can remember him like he was, rather than seeing a bloated old git with no voice, still ‘performing’….sorry Elt! (loved him too, 30years ago)

You can only have the deepest admiration for a man who had dwarves walking around at his parties with trays of cocaine on their heads, and who’d shag literally anything with a pulse, male, or female.

He could write a tune too. Bloody love the early Queen stuff. I can even forgive him the later stuff, when your contribution to popular culture includes this…

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thyJOnasHVE[/video]

An amazing talent and a quiet incredible life story!

Unfortunately my memories of his death are mostly related to the despicable behaviour and commentary by certain sections of the UK press.

I always remember the day he died coz it’s also my birthday. Hard to believe it’s 25 years though. I still feel privileged that I got to see Queen in concert just as they were at their (arguably first) peak when Bo Rap was #1 in the charts.

Yeah I saw Queen in 78 at Earls Court….when he still had long hair!

Like Binners, loved the early stuff, March of the Black Queen’ still gets played regularly. My love affair died circa Radio Ga Ga.

This photo would have been from about 78:

First ever gig I went to was Queen at Maine Road in 1986 (I’d have been 12). Still remember very clearly not long after he died my mum coming home with half a hair cut after her hairdresser saying he got what he (Freddie) deserved and she walked out in protest.

Feels like 25 years ago too.

Thats a loooooooooong time ago.

Was living in Paris at the time. Went to FNAC on B Haussemann and watched a video of Queen in concert with lots of other strangers in their little video booth.

What a musical and performance genius he was, I don’t see him as fat and bloated in his old age, more Jagger.

Sadly another great band I didn’t see live, decided to watch Live-Aid on TV so we could see the US show 🙁

Did buy fat bottomed girls / bicycle race with a picture cover though 🙂

Always strange to walk past the statute of him in Montreux by the lake. It just seems such a non-Freddie town but I suppose he was there for the medical help.

This is sort of perverse, but Freddie dying is what got me into music- we ended up with the tribute concert on the TV just because it was on, Metallica opened the whole thing and that was me hooked (and Extreme’s queen medley, and Axl Rose destroying Bohemian Rhapsody, and David Bowie doing Heroes, and George Michael’s Somebody to Love…) I ended up working backwards into Queen from there, the Brian May Band was my first ever gig. Also like that nobody, no matter how miserable or serious they are, can play Wembley now without going day-oh.

So, uh, thanks for that Freddie. Probably could have found an easier way to do it mind but I appreciate it. Now got Innuendo blaring in the office

His Live Aid performance eclipsed every other act on the day – I transferred my old VHS tape of it to DVD and still occasionally watch it.

“Still remember very clearly not long after he died my mum coming home with half a hair cut after her hairdresser saying he got what he (Freddie) deserved and she walked out in protest. “

Fair play.

It was a bit of a mess Speshpaul but my mums a woman of principles!

I watched the tribute concert on TV whilst staying in Amsterdam for a couple of weeks as a 13yo.
Holland is a great place to watch TV as a 13yo.

Anyways, yeah, superlatives were made for performers like Freddie. I distinctly remember the pre-match show at Nou-camp Euro cup final 99, they played ‘Barcelona’ full blast with Montserrat Caballe singing her part from an open top car driving around the stadium – Was magic – felt like Freddie was there in the stadium.

A huge talent and had the first pop video Bohemian Rhapsody, sadly at the time of his death there was no treatment for HIV, he sadly died but he left a huge memorial to pop music that will last for ever.

So, that means I was in hospital with a broken hip 25 years ago today!. Ward sister had pics of Freddie up all over the place as well.

My sister and her pal saved up and went a pilgrimage to his place in London, a few months later. Whilst they were outside, Mary Austen came out and invited them in fir tea, and and chat about Freddie. Nice touch that.

All listened tall my parents Queen albums, and I still like to listen too them, even the later stuff (released before he died, I’ve no interest in the tribute band Queen have now become). Queen 2 is still in my top 10 favourite albums.
I remember the day he died well as I was in court as a witness.
Has the Freddy Mercury film now been canned? I know Sacha Baren Cohen (good casting) walked out as he felt Taylor and May were making it too much about them or something like that.

I was setting up a business, I haven’t moved geographically but I’ve done a lot of living in those 25 years. There was a protest against the current AIDS information campaign outside the prefecture yesterday, madness – exactly where I read the headline, because Freddie made headlines even in France.

I loved Brighton Rock, found what followed amusing, lived in Barcelona, have lost a friend to AIDS and hope the publicity Freddie gave to the disease means I won’t lose others.

What a voice. What a songwriter. What a creative genius and what a performer and entertainer!

I am thankful to have been there.

RIP. I remember the moment that I found out, basement of Zetland pub in Huddersfield. I said go the bar man, are you sure? Oh you awesome fool 🙁

mum coming home with half a hair cut after her hairdresser saying he got what he (Freddie) deserved and she walked out in protest.

I like your mum.

I wish I could have seen Queen live, sadly I never did.
I guess in the late 70s I was too young to know what being gay was, I just loved their music and I still listen to it today. I remember some people turning their noses up Freddie at the time, I didn’t know why.
I think I’ll pop some headphones on for a bit, you know, and turn it up…..

I had just started Uni, and a guy down the corridor who played bass, woke up plugged in and just started riffing on ‘another one bites the dust’! A little bit sick, but what a baseline!

I wish I could have seen him live, as I think he was an amazing performer.

Do I have it all the wrong way round, but I seem to remember the day before he came out and admitted he had HIV, then died the next day? Please someone confirm this or deny it, it was my first term at uni and things were a little ‘hazy’!

It was a matter of days between publicly admitting illness and dying. I think it was because a tabloid was going to run the story so he chose to beat them to it

Yes, came out shortly before he died. How times have changed.

@turbo that’s a story, cheapeu !

@slim that must have been something at the Nou Camp, my eldest daughter walked down the aisle to it (having spent 2 years in Barcelona and got engaged there)

[*]Rumours circulate about lots of artists, but the announcement of AIDS didn’t surprise. It doesn’t change the fact he was a victim of a disease he wasn’t aware of. It’s not as if he took stupid risks, people didn’t know the risks. A generation took risks, I used condoms because I didn’t want to become a dad before I’d decided to, not because of the risk of catching something, and even if I did antibiotics cleared up anything serious we knew about. You can’t blame the rock and roll lifestyle, he didn’t fry his brain on STP, drown on puke or in a swimming pool. He just lived as he wished and got unlucky.

So his music was great, he made people dance and smile, and he unwittingly or even unwillingly raised the awareness of a killer disease which is still deadly because even with modern treatments AIDS is still a guillotine hanging over your head waiting to fall when the treatment gets too much and you need a break.

So, that means 25 years ago I arrived at Jordanstown College in Norn Ireland to find I’d misread my timetable and there was no lecture. That meant my lift back home wasn’t in and the fact I had no money was an issue. (My lift drove a MKIII Escort 1.3 Popular Plus). I walked home from Jordanstown to Ballyholme….what, 20 miles?

Upside was my Sony Walkman batteries would never last long enough playing tapes over a walk that long, but it could and did play radio. Five hours of Queen tribute. Freddie, your timing was perfect!

Every cloud……….

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF8QWSW0UbY[/video]

Damn that boy could sing. I love this acapella of we are the champions.

STOP!

Where’s the dissenting voice? When are we getting the “he wasn’t all that” post? Can it be that all of STW are finally unanimous in their praise for a musician?

FWIW Queen 2 still rates as one of my top 3 albums ever to have been produced.

@scotroutes; it seems that we all talk with one voice.
He was fabulous – and knew it and kept on raising the standard.
I can’t avoid wondering what he and Queen would have produced had he lived in good health.
25 years – F*** I know it wasn’t yesterday but that time has just flown past.

Saw them at Maine Road back in the 80’s. Freddie was awesome.

My first ever gig was to see Queen at Wembley, 1986. There’s some great footage of the gig on you tube, which reinforces just why he was of the greatest.

There’s a council in Oldham running a competition to name a road gritter – the leader at the moment is ‘Spready Mercury’. Genius.

That’s really sad, his mum lives round the corner from us & she died last weekend too.