9 - Freddie’s Trivial Pursuits…
Hello, good evening and welcome…again
As Jacky mentioned the other day, Trip is in Oz (he’s actually trout fishing in NZ at the moment) for a holiday and I have the misfortune of having stay with me. If anybody doesn’t know who he is, let me try and enlighten you. Trip is the guy who sits in the middle of the arena, twist a few knobs and makes the band sound fab and very loud. He has worked with just about every big band eg: Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Madonna, Wacko Jacko, Police, Steely Dan, Bon Jovi and a million others, oh, let’s not forget the Queenies. I’ve been walking around all day trying to think of a Trip/Crystal story and I can’t tell you about Japan, and I certainly cannot mention Dallas, and most things I can remember I won’t write, just yet. Maybe he can think of something decent. He got in late last Sat. and we had one or two at the pub and relived a few old tales, It’s great when this happens because we bounce off each other and even more old stories reappear.
One thing I did remember about us actually tied in with one of the first questions I received, Jacky said I could talk Fred into doing things. Well it’s true to a degree but I’m no god, it’s just that we had a mutual respect for each other and he knew that I would not ask him to do anything that would look bad for him, it’s called trust. This tale starts about two months before the Magic Tour begins and nearly everything is finalised and ready to go when late one afternoon Roger calls me up at home and say’s we have a huge problem and Freddie wants to cancel the tour after the Wembley Stadium shows because he’s getting very nervous about the tour becoming so big. I suggested that their manager spoke to him and Rog said “Beach has agreed with Fred, can you talk him out of this?” I said I would try but at the time had no idea how to go about it. Trip was living in London at the time, so I called him and said “Meet me tonight for dinner, I’m buying and we have a mission.” Trip was the ideal person to have as a sidekick for this cause FM loved him and listened to him as well.
After a very nice Italian meal, a couple of bottles of Chianti and the odd Sambucca I filled Trip in with the plan, we rock over to Logan Place, try and get the singer to have a drink, make him feel relaxed, and then NOT mention the tour all evening. On the way to the house we buy a couple of bottles of Champers, when we get there Phoebe lets us in and says Fred’s not really in a party mode, so we walked straight past him, said Hi and popped the first cork. It took a while but we finally got him to have a drink, so we started to chat about this, that and everything, except the tour. After talking for an hour or so I suggested a game of Trivial Pursuit and he said “One quick game then I’m off to bed.” After the Champagne went and the Vodka appeared the house was getting very rowdy, and by 6am when Trip and myself left the tour had only been spoken about once. “I’m really looking forward to the tour, we’re gonna have so much fun,” and that was said by the one person who apparently did not want to do it. Mission complete.
One last thing, books about Queen. I was in the bookshop the other day and saw the L.A.Jones book on Freddie, so I had a quick look and saw Spike’s story about how he joined, I don’t remember that happening but I’m sure the Duke’s not lying, although it did make me out to be a bit of an ogre, cool eh. What I did notice on the one page that I read was that Mz. Jones say’s that the band finally got a keyboard player in Spike. What about Morgan ‘The Guru’ Fisher and Fred Mandell, can’t these writers get anything right.
Whilst on the subject, somebody gave me 'Mercury, the king of Queen’ by Laura Jackson, and after reading it all I can say is if you have not got it, don’t waste your money, I thought it was a crock of shit with so many errors. Gerry’s book, if he ever gets it off the ground, should be interesting, I hope it’s more about his life, cause he worked with Hendrix, did Woodstock and everything big since the late 60’s. What I’m getting at here is that over the years a lot of people have said that I should write a book, well my dear’s, the time has come. Somebody has come up with a different idea for a change and we’re gonna go ahead with it. It’s going to be a book on Rock and Roll by people who know about it, and that’s all I’m going to say at the moment.