Hi,
I guess many of you will be aware of this forthcoming book by ex roadie Peter Hince.
It's due for release early in October.
The book looks interesting and at 288 pages will not be insubstantial.
It promises not only to focus on Freddie, but also "on the more social bond I had with John..."
See link link
I think this could be good. Hince always seemed like a pretty decent bloke, from what I've seen and read at least. In other words, I think he'll be truthful about the happenings around the band and not exaggerate or flat out lie for shock value, which is always the worry with these kind of books.
Quoted from his website :
"My literary agent has shown the manuscript to major international publishers and the response is good, but because it is not a tabloid style, sleazy, reveal-all book...."
Thank Christ for that.
Wow. Just finished reading Peter's new book and I am blown away: it is wonderful and I couldn’t put it down. The humour in it had me laughing out loud – very funny. Especially tales involving boredom, pyrotechnics and soft toys given to the band as presents and commandeered by the crew....
Everything in it, information-wise, was new and fresh – so interesting.
I think out of all the books on the band I’ve read (practically all), this is the very best. By a mile.
One of the joys of the old fan club website, were Peter's "memoirs" that were published there.
I'm STILL waiting for mine to arrive, but I hope the contents are in the same vein :)
Mine came today, Had a quick flick through it, will read it later. One thing though, since Ratty took a camara with him on most of the tours that he did, thought he could have put more "Unseen" photo's in the book.
Sebastian wrote: >>> One of the joys of the old fan club website, were Peter's "memoirs" that were published there.
Those were Crystal's, mate.
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Indeed they were!
Whoops! :)
I have got this book now and having read it, its very informative mainly about the roadies but some good stuff about queen and whats also good about it is that its not scandolous in the way other books have been
Peter Hince seems to be a generally all round nice guy
I've got the book too and almost finished reading it. Don't really know what to think of it - it's a bit too 'insidery' for me. Constantly reminds me of Phoebe's book. Phoebe's book had tons of 'We were not amused' - and Ratty's book is written in a (to me) similar style.
I just finished reading it a couple days ago, and it was a very good book (unless you're looking for tabloid-like stuff of which it has none).
There seems to be something a little confusing regarding the brazilian concerts (to me at least) in there though. He says that a concert date was scheduled for Belo Horizonte in 1981 and it was cancelled for some "odd reason" (or something, can't recall the words he used) but I think he confused it with the 84/85 concerts. As far as I can remember, in 81 the concert(s?) would be just in Rio, then when they didn't get the permission to play in the Maracanã stadium the concert(s) were rescheduled to São Paulo at the Morumbi, there were no other cities even rumoured let alone Belo Horizonte which is always left out, mostly during these days. In 1984 (mid-84 I think, can't remember exactly) though it seems that a big brazilian tour was planned with concerts in SP, Rio, Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre. There were even some bombastic radio advertisement for a couple weeks for these, at least for Belo Horizonte (where I live...). But when they were contacted to play at the Rock in Rio I it seems the whole tour was cancelled or put on hold, without any explanation at the time.
Bearing in mind the title of the book and the fact Hince was taking photos all through his time with Queen (and in fact gave it all up to become a photographer) there is an agonisingly small amount of photos in the book. It's a bit of a con really.
I think unseen refers to the story the book tells. In that it's a genuine inside view of what it was like working with them. Very different from being a fan sitting in row B section 112in an arena somewhere or a journalist writing a jaded review or someone with no real connection to the band writing an in depth book.
I see your point about the photographic view though.
Excellent book. And despite his irreverent down to earth approach he seemed genuinely in awe of Freddie at times. To me it gives a more realistic take than other books on what the band were like to work with .