MadTheDude 19.02.2013 13:39 |
When you got the news Fred died? I was way too young to remember, but it must have been a shock to the system! Any of our older members want to tell what you were doing and what your initial thoughts were? Losing a great singer such as him, Just curious to know. |
kosimodo 19.02.2013 14:05 |
Sure, returned at work after new year..... |
ANAGRAMER 19.02.2013 14:26 |
Give it a rest None of your business what people were doing or thinking 20 odd years ago |
master marathon runner 20.02.2013 04:59 |
Sure, i went to work , (builder) and what a sombre mood for everyone. Had radio 1 on and it was all Queen , naturally. Simon Bates was immense that day, handling everything with great sensitivity and professionalism , i still remember his words to this day. And a few days later......The traffic news, advising to stay away from (whatever area), as Freddie Mercuy's funeral was taking place!!!!!!!!!! |
brENsKi 20.02.2013 10:49 |
here. reading this just now. why did no fucker tell me he died...all this time - i just assumed him and Deacy had become recluses |
shannaschaffer 20.02.2013 11:53 |
I remember seeing/hearing Kurt Loder on MTV make the announcement and not thinking too much about it. I was an 18-year-old kid in the American South and my head was just wrapped around myself and my little high school world. I had a vague awareness of Queen as being the band with the Radio GaGa video with the flying car. Now I look back and want to kick myself for not being more tuned in when it happened. Not just Freddie dying but the whole AIDS story that had been unfolding for years. I don't know how to explain it. I was like every other teen at the time, but now I am a huge Queen fan who consumes as much Freddie Mercury as I can in a day. I feel like something really important happened that I missed. Not that I could have done something about it. But that's a time in Queen's history that I think about a lot and really wish I could have been more mature and not living in the U.S. at the time. |
brENsKi 20.02.2013 13:30 |
i don't understand the "kicking yourself" comment. you weren't missing out on something.... it's certainly not a cause for regret at not being "more tuned in". it's one of those things in life - things happen all the time just think of the last generation for anyone being born since 2000....twin towers, bin laden, mars lander, michael jacksons death, north korean nukes...youngsters now need not feel regret at not being "tuned"...everything is relative....if you're five yrs old then your toys and mum and dad's love are the only significant things in life if you're 15 then your friends and what you're doing in the evening is more important than something happening 3000 miles away i'll give you some examples from my life.....kennedy assassination, martin luther king being killed, aberfan mining disaster, torrey canyon...and countless others...all real tragedies and significant world events....that i was blissfully ignorant of at the time. and they're all much more important than freddie's death. |
shannaschaffer 20.02.2013 14:41 |
True, Brenski. But I look back and think that someone I now highly admire was going through so much and I had my head up my a$$ wondering what I was going to wear to prom. |
Jazz 78 20.02.2013 14:57 |
I was 26 and a fan since I was 12. I heard a quick news blurb the night before he passed that he was on his death bed. When they came back from the commercial break I recorded, on VHS, the 10 second report. I couldn't believe it even though I had been collecting newspaper clippings regarding rumors of his health all week. Which I still have. The next day it was all over the radio and television that he passed away. I too remember Kurt Loder on MTV reporting it. |
FriedChicken 20.02.2013 15:47 |
I can't remember. I was 5 years old and was lying in the hospital. A funny coincidence is that I broke my leg and that Freddie also broke a leg when going to the bathroom during his last days. It's sad that we were going through the same thing at the same time. And we didn't know. Or at least I didn't know, maybe he did. |
GratefulFan 20.02.2013 16:33 |
In 1991 I was 24 and renting a great house that overlooked our modest downtown. It had a large loft bedroom upstairs and I was laying backwards on my bed, very late in the night, and looking out the large picture window through gnarled tree branches at the lights of my small city. I was in a melancholy mood and there was something about the space in my room that left a lonely feeling that night. Wet snow was falling against the window and quickly turning to water and running down the glass. I remember the sound of the wind and the snow against the window even now. I was listening to my radio and the DJ came on and announced the news that Freddie Mercury had died of AIDS at 45. I was struck numb with shock and sadness and regret and in those moments the water on my window looked like tears. Being in Canada and not an avid TV watcher in that period I had managed to escape the fact that he was ill at all. Queen wasn't then as special as they would become to me much later, but I was definitely very sad for his tragic end and immediately keenly aware of the loss to music I would mull many, many times in subsequent years. |
brENsKi 20.02.2013 16:50 |
sorry - bore you with a bit of background. up until 90 i'd had every queen vinyl rarity i could hold of - had a collection worth approx £3000 - in those days a lot of money. however, with a young baby to provide for i sold the collection and by 91 was working in london - commuting from the midlands early daily. i was still a huge queen fan, but had bigger priorities than collecting vinyl. anyhow, was 28 at the time and due to a year of commuting to london - i'd managed to miss almost every bit of queen related news for the year. vaguely remember the Brit Awards and seeing Freddie and thinking "he doesn't look well, he smokes loads....wonder if he's got cancer" travelling to london, 05:30 am on that monday morning....driving an F-reg montego and the ten mile journey to the motorway was all queen music on the radio....three songs in a row - no idea why....then as i got on the motorway....another queen song, then anothter, then another...then 6am news and - fuck!!! couldn't believe it. oh yeah it all made sense but it didn't at the same time...pulled over onto hard shoulder to take it in....set off again...was in london office by 7:30...by 8:00 the place was buzzing with the news... |
shannaschaffer 20.02.2013 18:34 |
As I said earlier I was too self-absorbed at 18, but I don't recall any news or gossip about Freddie's condition leading up to his death. MTV or the radio was always on in my room and I read a celebrity gossip weekly that my grandmother subscribed to. But his death seemed out-of-the-blue to me. Was that the case for everyone in the U.S.? Or was I even more oblivious than I thought? |
waunakonor 20.02.2013 19:21 |
Half of me was an egg cell sitting blissfully inside one of my mother's ovaries. I didn't hear anything about the news until years later. I guess I just didn't follow current events very well at the time.
FriedChicken wrote: Freddie also broke a leg when going to the bathroom during his last days.I never heard about that. Where did you read this at? |
tomchristie22 21.02.2013 01:04 |
It's kind of odd - I wasn't alive at the time, and having only become a Queen fan in recent years, I knew about Freddie's death at a time when it really had no personal significance to me. The way his death's meaning has changed for me as I've become more immersed in their music and lives has been quite astonishing, it almost came out of nowhere when I first felt truly sad over his death. |
dave76 21.02.2013 05:38 |
i was 15 in 1991 and i still remember a friend came to me the day before Fred passed telling me that he had AIDS and i didn't want to believe that. But 24 hours later as i was getting ready for a new schoolweek, on monday the 24th it was all over the news and i remember that i broke down and started crying. I became a real fan in 1989 when The Miracle was released and i started collecting a few years later. It was a sad day, the 24th for all of us fans and when you think back on that day, it makes you sad all over again. |
Togg 21.02.2013 07:40 |
I woke up at 6ish turned on the TV and heard the news, went to work in a daze and faked a meeting out of the office. then traveled to Freddie's house to stand with a few people. It took me hours to locate where it was, and in the end I only stayed there 10 mins as it felt wrong to be there. Glad i did thou. Spent the rest of the day in the same daze and disbelief. |
brENsKi 21.02.2013 10:25 |
didn't Eric Carr die the same day? |
Stelios 21.02.2013 11:31 |
Its a bit strange. I was 12 at the time and i fell in love with Queen six months after his death when exposed to the Innuendo album. Thinking back i vaguely remember an interesting character who was a singer and died from this (monster at that time) disease. In Greek media the news of his death was not covered as ''big news'' so it must have been MTV Europe that created these thin memories. It was a year after his death that i started having empathy for him and his suffering. Then Wembley 86 was broadcasted and he really seemed more alive than ''alive people''.It was a weird feeling but it was genuine and it stayed. Now i do believe that the impression his death had on me and the ''time shifting'' way i received it did messed with my head ( with my subconscious actually) for quite a while. |
BRIANMAYCOLLECTOR 21.02.2013 12:41 |
I remember it like it was yesterday, I was 21 and my mother wakes me up with the news! I knew he was very ill, but still, it hurt me so much that for months he could not hear his voice without getting sad, really still misses him very much! I thank God for being a fan of Queen since 1980 and I went to a rock in rio, Freddie will always be the best singer in rock history! |
brENsKi 21.02.2013 13:05 |
BRIANMAYCOLLECTOR wrote:how many "Brian Mays" have you got in your collection |
Hangman_96 21.02.2013 16:55 |
brENsKi wrote:It made my day!BRIANMAYCOLLECTOR wrote:how many "Brian Mays" have you got in your collection |
bobbyo 22.02.2013 02:00 |
I was 8 and vaguely remember it being on the TV and getting the feeling that it was a big deal. It's the only time my wife has ever seen her Dad cry. My big sister bought the subsequent re-release of Bo-Rap, played it to me and I've been hooked ever since. |
MadTheDude 22.02.2013 07:23 |
Thanks to everyone for sharing their stories. When Fred died, Queen only seemed to have gained More fans, what an incredible man, who touched so many of us. And Queen as a whole- just can't get any better than Queen!! |
Belladonic haze 22.02.2013 08:00 |
I remember, crystal clear, and I really would like to forget. It was and will always be extremely painful for me. |
FriedChicken 22.02.2013 11:32 |
waunakonor wrote: I never heard about that. Where did you read this at?In the last hours of his life Freddie announced to Jim Hutton that he had to go the bathroom by saying 'Pee pee'. Freddie at that point was unable to walk so Jim and Peter picked him up to bring him to the toilet. When they were putting him down on the bed again there was a horrible cracking sound and apparently Freddie broke his leg. |
mooghead 22.02.2013 15:19 |
"In the last hours of his life Freddie announced to Jim Hutton that he had to go the bathroom by saying 'Pee pee'. Freddie at that point was unable to walk so Jim and Peter picked him up to bring him to the toilet. When they were putting him down on the bed again there was a horrible cracking sound and apparently Freddie broke his leg" Thanks for sharing that horrible image. You are a dick. |
brENsKi 22.02.2013 16:31 |
have to disagree with you on this i had no idea about this til my dad was really unwell (4½ yrs ago) and the locum dr advised ot be careful helping him in and out of bed it's something worth knowing - esp if you're ever in the position of carer |
mooghead 22.02.2013 16:42 |
Great... everything is ok then... |
Saint Jiub 22.02.2013 21:27 |
shannaschaffer wrote: As I said earlier I was too self-absorbed at 18, but I don't recall any news or gossip about Freddie's condition leading up to his death. MTV or the radio was always on in my room and I read a celebrity gossip weekly that my grandmother subscribed to. But his death seemed out-of-the-blue to me. Was that the case for everyone in the U.S.? Or was I even more oblivious than I thought?I do not think that you were oblivious. I found out when a local Chicago television station mentioned it as an afterthought at the tail end of their 10:00 PM news. If not for that brief mention of his death, I do not know when I would of heard of his passing. Queen was dead in the US long before Freddie died. |
Martinmanchester 24.02.2013 08:44 |
The only thing i want to remember about that time is the love shown to Freddie from all the fans from around the world who travelled to London to pay there respects.... |
Brandon36 24.02.2013 10:05 |
I was -4 years old, but Hell, I get sad when reading up on his last months/watching interviews about his last days, very sad especially since I won't be able to ever see them, with Mercury that is, live no matter how badly I want to see them. |
ParisNair 24.02.2013 14:04 |
I was 10 years old and understood very little English. Television meant 2 channels broadcast by the government. 2 channels because I was in Mumbai (Bombay back then). Rest of the country had just 1 channel. To improve my English, my father insisted we watch "The World This Week" - an English language weekly round-up of news from around the world. It was on this program that I saw Freddie for the first time - footage from Wembley with the crown and all. And I also remember the host of the program saying that the Indian origin rockstar Freddie Mercury had died of AIDS. I did not feel anything at all, other than an interest in the fact that the guy was Indian and did not look Indian at all. I became a Queen fan much much later (in the new millenium). |