| MotherGoose 20.07.2006 22:39 |
How long have you been following Queen, and how did you discover them? Here's my story: **************************************** I was in high school in the mid 70s. I saw the Bohemian Rhapsody video on The Midnight Special, hosted by Wolfman Jack.I then went to the record store across the street and started buying all the Queen records, would have been A Night at the Opera, Sheer Heart Attack, and the first two Queen records. I saw Queen live at the Saginaw Civic Center in 76 or 77. I looked up some tour history and they came to my town both years but Thin Lizzy opend with them in 77, so I think that's the year I went. I was so amazed by their musical versatility, they were so ahead of their times. The rocks magazines like Cream, ect. just ragged on them mercilessly. Queen was above their puny little minds, I guess. I continued to buy records, I bought the first copy of the record that had the nude bicycle race in it! After a big controversy, they stoped carrying the poster. I wonder if it would be a collector's item now? Anyway, in the early 80s, I graduated from high school and joined the Marine Corps, where I was a musician. Life took me in a different direction and my musical tastes changed. I thinkt he last Queen record I bought was The Game. Fast forward now to 1991, when I was in Alaska during crab fishing season. It was a dark November day when I heard on a radio, "Freddie Mercury, lead singer for the band Queen, has died from complications of AIDS." The news struck me like the proverbial punch in the stomach. "No, Freddie can't be gone, not that Freddie Mercury, it can't be right!" I remember telling friends, "I always loved Queen, they were the best." I grieved when I heard of Freddie's death. In the spring of 1992, I moved down to Seattle after I left Alaska, and it was April I think, and I was at a neighbor's apartment, and the tribute concert for Freddie by the surviving members of Queen, Liza Minelli, and others was on. I watched it with tears in my eyes. So, here it is another decade and I revisited my first musical love yet again. I've downloaded some of the old 70s Queen songs to my iPod, and rented all the Queen musical videos and A Night At The Opera videos. It's like sitting down and catching up with old friends. Then I found this site. I think I remember Queen with Paul Rogers coming to Seattle recently, like within the past couple years. I didn't go, because to me, Queen died on that sad November day in 1991. I thank Brian and Roger though for their leadership in keeping Queen's legacy and music alive. The sun will never set on Queen for this music fan. Reign on! |
| Gone. 20.07.2006 22:46 |
I really cant tell my story...it is too personal...full of pain...well anyways, all i can say is that at 7, i became obsessed with all of the members, had all of the albums (my parents are huge fans) and have all of their songs on my ipod. LOL... |
| deleted user 20.07.2006 22:57 |
I remember trying to sing "Another One Bites The Dust" when I was in 3rd grade, but I didn't even bother with them until maybe 2 years ago. I heard "Bohemian Rhapsody" often on the radio, and us weird band people often sang it on the marching band bus on the way back from a football game. That got me interested in the song and the band who sang it, and then my aunt got me the Greatest Hits I & II set last Christmas. So I listened, and it was love at first listen. <3 I've loved them ever since. Even my dad still has a NOTW record from when he was in high school, which I eagerly wait to play for when we figure out how to hook up the turntable to the speakers. lol |
| rocks. 20.07.2006 23:53 |
My story isnt very interesting, But I was born in the spring of 92, so I never got to be around when Queen were at their height, which pisses me off each and every day, but last November my sister brought home Greatest Hits, and then her friend lent her Greatest Hits 2 and 3 and I totally fell in love. (Im a relativly new fan, but I have every single song downloaded, or off CD, as well as demo's, solo stuff and live stuf, etc..) Anyhoo, from then on, ive been working on buliding up my CD collection, and just today I picked up Barcelona. *sigh* Gorgeous. |
| Deacon Fan 21.07.2006 00:23 |
I'll try to shorten it a bit to more of a chronology: 1980 - I'm 9 years old and hear 'Another One Bites The Dust'. Love the song, don't understand the words but soon.. 1981 - My birthday in January and I get the AOBTD single among my presents. Play it and the b-side "Don't Try Suicide" over and over and eventually get "The Game" followed by "Queen" from my stepdad (he already had it) as well as listening to some of the other older albums on his reel-to-reels. The year winds up with "Greatest Hits" which probably got the most play of any album I ever owned. 1982 - I continue to get my own copies of older albums.. I think I had them all except Live Killers.. never had that on vinyl.. by the time Hot Space comes out. After that it gets a little fuzzy. Hate to say Hot Space made me lose interest but it kinda seems that way. I have no memory of what happened to all the albums but I'm pretty sure I didn't have ANY of them by the time... 1984 - I see the video for Radio Ga Ga and loved the song but it didn't spark me to delve into Queen again. I see the video for Break Free twice on U.S. TV... record the audio the 2nd time in fact (we had the MTV stereo hook-up). So I played that a lot on cassette. 1985 - I remember Live Aid but not Queen in particular.. I only saw bits of it. 1986 - I see Iron Eagle on HBO I think and it's cool how they used One Vision, but still, my interest isn't enough to get me back into Queen. 1989 - I hear 'I Want it All' on the radio a few times. Still nothing. 1991 - Early in the year, I hear "Innuendo" on the radio several times and don't like it much.. LOL. Later in the year I see a documentary (The Days of Our Lives) on TV late one night and I'm reminded how much I used to love Queen. I also think Freddie looks very odd at the end when they premiere the video for TATDOOL. I tell my brother "looks like he's had plastic surgery or something". Then I start buying Queen stuff.. starting with The Works actually.. right where I left off before :) And just as I'm getting into Queen again and loving it.. Freddie dies :( So I hung in there and kept buying stuff.. but a couple times since I've lost interest and sold nearly everything, thinking they were done.. then something "new" would come out and the cycle would start again. My current cycle began in 2002 and fortunately it hasn't ended this time :) haha.. and that's the "short" version.. yeah.. sorry |
| The prophet's song 21.07.2006 03:33 |
I've always loved Queen, because to be honest, me and my brother never really get along, but one of the very rare moments when we did get along was when we were little and we would jump on mum and dad's bed singing 'Invisible Man' or when I would pretend to be Roger Taylor banging on plastic buckets and he would be Brian May playing a squash racket. So really, when ever I hear Queen I think of the good times, which is why I've never stopped listning to them and why I've converted many of my friends to their great music. |
| Killer Queenie 21.07.2006 03:54 |
I never knew who sung "a kind of magic" so when my dad and me were looking for some cds we saw some Queen ones, we looked through them and I picked up Live At Wembley coz it had A kind Of Magic and We Will Rock You on it. Thats how I grew to like Queen :D |
| eenaweena 21.07.2006 05:08 |
hm... i wasn't really able to see queen because i was born in '91. sad, ain't it? my dad had his high school reunion at that time, and his friend gave him a cd of rock classics. definitely, WWRY was there. I dug the cd, because i never really liked the music nowadays. super slutty music come out these days. i was also into retro that time (jackson 5, beatles, etc.) then, since he knew that i liked his cd, he asked me to choose one cd between led zeppelin and queen. i chose queen, because he's told me lots of controversial stories about queen. i was so intrigued with their history, so i decided to buy queen. i listen to their cd, i immediately LOVED it, and the rest is history. now, i'm here with even more fanatic queen fans, praising queen for their music, their greatness, and their just being plain different. :) i became a follower late 2004, but i only discovered queenzone this year. hehe. :) so, there. not very interesting. but still, i'd like to share my story. :) |
| The Fairy King 21.07.2006 05:14 |
1991 - Innuendo Video round that time a friend of the family came around and he brought the album Innuendo with him all the time and i'm hooked on em ever since. First album woz Greatest Hits II, bought later that year and the rest is very expensive history. |
| RETROLOVE 21.07.2006 05:50 |
MotherGoose wrote: How long have you been following Queen, and how did you discover them? Here's my story: **************************************** I was in high school in the mid 70s. I saw the Bohemian Rhapsody video on The Midnight Special, hosted by Wolfman Jack.I then went to the record store across the street and started buying all the Queen records, would have been A Night at the Opera, Sheer Heart Attack, and the first two Queen records. I saw Queen live at the Saginaw Civic Center in 76 or 77. I looked up some tour history and they came to my town both years but Thin Lizzy opend with them in 77, so I think that's the year I went. I was so amazed by their musical versatility, they were so ahead of their times. The rocks magazines like Cream, ect. just ragged on them mercilessly. Queen was above their puny little minds, I guess. I continued to buy records, I bought the first copy of the record that had the nude bicycle race in it! After a big controversy, they stoped carrying the poster. I wonder if it would be a collector's item now? Anyway, in the early 80s, I graduated from high school and joined the Marine Corps, where I was a musician. Life took me in a different direction and my musical tastes changed. I thinkt he last Queen record I bought was The Game. Fast forward now to 1991, when I was in Alaska during crab fishing season. It was a dark November day when I heard on a radio, "Freddie Mercury, lead singer for the band Queen, has died from complications of AIDS." The news struck me like the proverbial punch in the stomach. "No, Freddie can't be gone, not that Freddie Mercury, it can't be right!" I remember telling friends, "I always loved Queen, they were the best." I grieved when I heard of Freddie's death. In the spring of 1992, I moved down to Seattle after I left Alaska, and it was April I think, and I was at a neighbor's apartment, and the tribute concert for Freddie by the surviving members of Queen, Liza Minelli, and others was on. I watched it with tears in my eyes. So, here it is another decade and I revisited my first musical love yet again. I've downloaded some of the old 70s Queen songs to my iPod, and rented all the Queen musical videos and A Night At The Opera videos. It's like sitting down and catching up with old friends. Then I found this site. I think I remember Queen with Paul Rogers coming to Seattle recently, like within the past couple years. I didn't go, because to me, Queen died on that sad November day in 1991. I thank Brian and Roger though for their leadership in keeping Queen's legacy and music alive. The sun will never set on Queen for this music fan. Reign on!Cool story!!! |
| deleted user 21.07.2006 06:24 |
I was born in September 1992, so unfortunately the great man himself had already died by that stage. I was born into a family of classic rock lovers, so of course I loved it myself from a young age, but neither of my parents were into Queen at all so they certainly didn't introduce me to it. I was converted at Christmas 2004 while watching VH1 and the video for 'Somebody To Love' came on. I immediately thought, "Why didn't they tell me about this band before!" and rushed out to buy Greatest Hits. After listening to it I was hooked and bought every other album, plus the DVDs, books and clothing, and joined Queenzone. Plus a year and a half later, and there I was getting my photo taken with Brian May, which I never thought would happen to me. So that's my story. They've been with me ever since, and they always will be. I'm going to make sure my children grow up listening to Queen too. |
| RETROLOVE 21.07.2006 06:31 |
<font color=red>Quonkers wrote: I was born in September 1992, so unfortunately the great man himself had already died by that stage. I was born into a family of classic rock lovers, so of course I loved it myself from a young age, but neither of my parents were into Queen at all so they certainly didn't introduce me to it. I was converted at Christmas 2004 while watching VH1 and the video for 'Somebody To Love' came on. I immediately thought, "Why didn't they tell me about this band before!" and rushed out to buy Greatest Hits. After listening to it I was hooked and bought every other album, plus the DVDs, books and clothing, and joined Queenzone. Plus a year and a half later, and there I was getting my photo taken with Brian May, which I never thought would happen to me. So that's my story. They've been with me ever since, and they always will be. I'm going to make sure my children grow up listening to Queen too.Oh my goodness!!! You were born in 1992 and you listen to Queen!!! That is so great. My brother was born in 1990, and he thinks all the members of Queen were like gay or something...so great that you like GOOD music, not this crap that is out nowadays!! |
| Winter Land Man 21.07.2006 07:16 |
I'm in the US folks. A long time ago, on a school bus. They played We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, Another One Bites The Dust, and Killer Queen, on a daily basis. It was on a cassette. This was like 1996, and they played it till TLC got their peak in popularity, then it was TLC all the time, and then they played that remake/spoof of their song. I like someone else above, got the Greatest Hits I and II double pack... I got it on Christmas of 1999. I also remember listening to Bohemian Rhapsody on my computer in like 1997 I think. I remember asking my mom how Freddie died, and she said "AIDS" and I said "So he was gay?" and she was like "You don't have to be gay to have AIDS"... but I suspected by her reaction. Anyway, in 1999 and probably a bit of 2000, I was afraid to listen to some of the songs on Greatest Hits II... particularly Headlong, Innuendo, The Show Must Go On, I'm Going Slightly Mad, and I Want It All. Judging from the 1991 photo of the Queen members in the blue suits, I suspected something was wrong and that's when he died, despite the fact I didn't have knowledge of the year he died and it didn't say so in the CD packet. He looked really pale and scary (and I was like 12 or 13 at this time, and I was a male!)... and the songs sounded different, a bit more rapsy and weird... especially I'm Going Slightly Mad. I was a closet Queen fan for a while due to having an older sister that was a rap fan and laughed at the fact of Queen. Nowadays I own the Queen & Freddie Mercury albums and many singles as well (Cassette/Vinyl/CD). And I'm a bigger fan of Queen's 80s and 90s music than their 70s. I was so excited when it was Queen night on a radio station in my area. Hammer To Fall, Radio GaGa, Bicycle Race, and Under Pressure were played. Under Pressure is played a lot anyway, and Bicycle Race sometimes. In fact theirs a commercial for a local bicycle shop that uses that song for it's theme and it's played on that station. And for a while the station's theme song was Radio GaGa. But Hammer To Fall was special. I was also happy the time they had songs from soundtracks and the DJ was saying info about this band and teasing us with info, and I was thinking (A Kind Of Magic?) but then he said "This is from Iron Eagle... it's Freddie Mercury and The Boys with ONE VISION!" and they played it! I remember coming back from Massachusetts one time and they played Thank God It's Christmas on the radio from request... the caller wanted to see if they had it, and they did, and the DJ said "thought we wouldn't have it and thought you could fool us" and then he played it! Another local radio station (small small radio station, made for just one town, yet still is broadcasted all over), I was watching the station on TV (in the studio) and the DJ played 'The Show Must Go On' I remember the days in the early 90s (when Queen's fame shot back up) that they'd play things like Calling All Girls, Need Your Loving Tonight, and Play The Game... all frequently. I loved it... despite not knowing much about music or not knowing at all who did that music. I never knew how to look up that stuff. My first memory of Queen was riding with my family, and as we were exiting my town, I heard "Keep Yourself Alive", and this was back in like 1990. I enjoyed it. They still play it a lot on the radio, but didn't start playing it a lot until like late last summer. There was a gap with that song. Early 90s it ended (probably around 1992) and didn't get played much again till the summer of 2005. They also played Stone Cold Crazy on the radio last summer. Only once though, as far as I know. I think my actually favorite memory of Queen though was when my Dad was working in the basement on some project, and we had a radio down there, and I was walking down a hall way down there, and I heard Play The Game. That's my favorite memory, I preferred the song than Keep You |
| deleted user 21.07.2006 07:48 |
Sorry, double post. |
| deleted user 21.07.2006 07:50 |
<font color=red>Quonkers wrote:I couldn't listen to that rap and hip hop rubbish, it drives me mad. Where's the beauty in it? I've never been able to see any. I always listened to rock music but when I first heard Queen it really struck something in me. For a start, no other guitarist ever inspired me to learn to play guitar as much as Brian did.<B>Jellybean Queen<h6>sweetbodykisses<B> wrote:<font color=red>Quonkers wrote: I was born in September 1992, so unfortunately the great man himself had already died by that stage. I was born into a family of classic rock lovers, so of course I loved it myself from a young age, but neither of my parents were into Queen at all so they certainly didn't introduce me to it. I was converted at Christmas 2004 while watching VH1 and the video for 'Somebody To Love' came on. I immediately thought, "Why didn't they tell me about this band before!" and rushed out to buy Greatest Hits. After listening to it I was hooked and bought every other album, plus the DVDs, books and clothing, and joined Queenzone. Plus a year and a half later, and there I was getting my photo taken with Brian May, which I never thought would happen to me. So that's my story. They've been with me ever since, and they always will be. I'm going to make sure my children grow up listening to Queen too.Oh my goodness!!! You were born in 1992 and you listen to Queen!!! That is so great. My brother was born in 1990, and he thinks all the members of Queen were like gay or something...so great that you like GOOD music, not this crap that is out nowadays!! |
| Jazz 78 21.07.2006 07:59 |
My cousin was their lighting director in the late 70's. He came home after the Day at the Races tour and showed us a copy of Creem magazine with Queen featured in it. This was the band he wanted to show his family he was working with now. I saw the photos inside and at that time I thought they looked ugly (they weren't very flattering photos)and kind of dismissed it. 6 months later NOTW came out and We Will Rock You and "Champions" was all over the radio. When I found out who it was I went out and bought the album just to see if Joe's name was in the credits. It wasn't. Then I bought each album up to NOTW looking for his name just to impress my friends. Well, it wasn't in any of those albums but I had become addicted at that point and the rest is history. 29 years later I'm still addicted. His name finally appeard in the Jazz and Live Killers albums. He left after the Jazz tour to work with Foreigner and numerous other bands but nothing compared to his time with Queen. |
| AspiringPhilosophe 21.07.2006 08:34 |
When I was in 6th grade, I was friends with a guy named Jesse, who was the towel boy for the middle school wrestling team. I remember going to one of the meets just to keep Jesse company, and when the guys came out they were all singing We Will Rock You. At first I thought it was just something they'd made up in the locker room or something, so I didn't give much thought to it. Later, in 7th grade, I was on the volleyball team and on one of our bus trips some people on the bus started singing We Are the Champions after we beat a particularly tough team. I remember asking a teammate where the song was from, and she said "Some old band sang it a long time ago...I think they were called Queen." Again, I didn't give too much thought to it. In 8th grade, my best friend introduced me to a TV show that she had fallen in love with called Highlander, based off of the movies. From the first time I heard Princes of the Universe I became obsessed! I had to find out who was singing that theme music, with the excellent guitar riffs and Freddie's powerful voice. Thank goodness that at the end of the show they gave Queen props for the intro music. I put two and two together, and realized I had to get their stuff! Sad part was, that it was 1996, and Freddie had passed. I didn't realize it until I started trying to look for albums, and every store I went to didn't carry them. Finally a clerk in one of them told me that since Freddie had died, they'd stopped carrying the Queen albums. The next day, I was watching Highlander with Jenny (my friend) and it was an epiode that featured Who Wants to Live Forever, and we both just sat there and cried for the beauty of the song, for Freddie, and for the sadness in the episode (Duncan's fiance had just been murdered). I assumed the band had broken up after Freddie's death, so I kinda quit looking for stuff. A few Christmas' later, my parents found me the It's a Kind of Magic CD, and after listening to that I decided that I had to find their older stuff. Fast forward to 2 years ago...I was browsing through the CD section at my local store and found a 3 disc Platinum Edition of their Greatest Hits. Of course I bought it, and fell in love with them all over again. The variety and sheer musical talent was unlike anything I'd heard before....no song ever sounded the same as another. Unfortunatly, I haven't been able to find any other Queen CD's since. I could order them from Amazon or from Sam Goody, but money is a huge issue for me right now and I can't. So I've contented myself with what I've got, and Launchcast Radio has introduced me to a few Queen songs that weren't included on the greatest hits albums. I never got to see them live, since I didn't really know of their existance until 1996 (my parents listen to country....ick!), but I can just imagine what it must have been like. Sorry about the novel! |