Fryderyki Awards 1995: Brian and Roger’s first visit in Poland
Roger and Brian in front of the Chopin monument in the Łazienki Park, Warsaw (20.03.1995)
Queen’s first concert in Poland took place in Wrocław 2012, but many people have forgotten that Brian May and Roger Taylor visited Poland before - on the occasion of the “Fryderyk” awards for year 1995. I’ve noticed a lot of confusion regarding the date of their visit - sometimes it’s labeled as 1995, and sometimes as 1997. From what I’ve gathered, it must’ve definitely been on 19 March 1995 - it’s mentioned that they received the award in the Polish Theatre, and in the 1996-2002 the gala was held in the Congress Room in the Palace of Culture and Science. Here’s the full list of the 1995 winners.
Brian and Roger in front of the Royal Castle; Warsaw’s Old Town (19.03.1995)
The “Teraz Rock” (now “Tylko Rock” )magazine (6/1996 issue) wrote a long article about Bri and Rog’s visit in Warsaw, which I’m gonna translate for you. Hope you’ll enjoy, the original version can be found here.
During Brian May and Roger Taylor from the Queen band’s visit in Warsaw, Kinga Siennicka from Pomaton EMI was taking care of them. Here’s a bunch of reflections after the meeting with the famous musicians.
Roger was the only one who was supposed to come at first, but two days ahead of the planned visit it turned out that Brian, who had just come back from the holidays, is also eager to travel to Warsaw. It was known that Jim Beach - the band’s legendary manager and the entire EMI’s terror - was to accompany them. I heard various stories regarding Jim, but the overall majority of my friends from EMI declared that he’s quite a nice guy - until something doesn’t go as he had hoped, that is. So, for my own sake I had checked everything twice: the apartments at the Bristol hotel, the limo (8-meters long Cadillac), the restaurants, the course of the Fryderyk awards and the platinum cd, etc.. [tbc.]
The Bristol Hotel, where Brian, Roger and Jim Beach were staying.
Finally, the big day arrived - tuesday, 19 March. Jim, who lives in Montreaux, Switzerland, was the first one to arrive. He turned out to be innocently looking elderly gentleman with an eye defect called…a squint which, I gotta admit, was a bit distracting during conversations… A few minutes after 3 PM the “right” plane landed: with Roger Taylor, Brian May and Martin Groves (Roger’s friend, bodyguard, assistant, and “all at once”) on the board. There were crowds of fans at the airport - fans who somehow had found the way to find out about the time of the band’s visit (some of them had supposedly been waiting since 6 AM!!!), but also a number of photographers and representants of the television platforms (Teleexpress, Panorama, Wiadomości). It was the latter who were the most problematic. After roughly 20 minutes and an intervention of 6 bodyguards we managed to get into our limo and relatively swiftly get to the hotel.
The “Fryderyki” gala was to take place in the evening, but first we were to dine at one of Old Town’s restaurants. Since the gentlemen wanted to take a longer walk around the city, Brian had plenty of time to practise Polish phrases he was to use in his evening speech at the Polish Theatre. Either I am a poor teacher or…. the Polish language is simply too difficult. Finally, the phrases were remembered, we also did a ‘test’ during dinner, which also ended positively and everything seemed perfectly alright up until the moment we were standing backstage, and the musicians were just about to enter the scene. Brian then said, with terror in his eyes: “I’m not gonna say it! I’ll make a complete fool of myself, pretending to know Polish, and I’m going to sound pathetic with my English accent!”. I had nothing else left than to tell him that if I can make a fool of myself, speaking English all the time, he can make a “fool” of himself speaking one sentence Polish for ten seconds! That was enough. Brian entered the stage and said: Good evening…Jesteśmy zaszczyceni [We are honoured]. After leaving the stage he looped his hands around my neck, saying “I’ve done it!”. And you could visibly see how happy and deeply touched he was.
Mr. May is a kind of man who lives in his own world, constantly contemplating something, deep in his thoughts. For instance, he would stand in the amber shop for hours, search the gifts for his family, while everybody else was starving, waiting for him to finally pick something… Because of Brian we almost missed our plane…because he really wanted to take a picture of the Palace of Culture and Science!
They almost missed the plane because of that building - the Palace of Culture and Science (modern view).
After the Gala we started exploring Warsaw’s nightlife, but we didn’t stay long in any pub, because the musicans were recognized by their fans and asked for autographs everywhere.
The next day we went to see the Łazienki park and the Chopin monument, which Roger would love to bring home! The musicians took a photo with the Polish policemen, who… turned out to be the (other)British Queen’s escort, ate, packed their bags and, with small troubles (same as the once we described at the beginning), reached the airport. At 4 o’clock they safely left our country…
The gala was transmitted in the Polish television, the clip can be seen here:
Queen gets introduced at 2:10, then they enter the scene. Then Brian gets emo about getting a red rose, starts his speech at 3:04 (forgive the Polish translation, but you can still hear what he says). He says “Jesteśmy zaszczyceni” (We are honoured) at 3:24, followed by “Bardzo dziękujemy” (We thank you very much) and Roger’s shy “Dziękuję” (Thank you). I can tell you that Brian had nothing to worry about - his first Polish was excellent, and he also chose a pretty complicated word to pronounce, they both did a great job!
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