Queens’ Tragic Rhapsody

Queen would not tour the U.S. again after 1982. There were rumors that some in the band held Mercury’s image to blame for alienating that huge audience. “Some of us hate it,” Deacon told RS in 1981. “But that’s him and you can’t stop it.” May, though, makes it sound like the band was uncon­cerned about the U.S. market: “There was al­ways someplace where we were shit-hot and we could go and be ourselves and not worry.”

Q ueen rema ined a touring juggernaut, fill­ing stadiums and arenas internationally through much of the 1980s. The tours were so big, the shows so spectacu­lar, that it all became another aspect that worked against the band: To some observ­ers, Queen was industry, not art. What’s more, judging by a couple of awful occasions, a perhaps heartless industry at that. In early 1981, Queen undertook their first brief but eventful tour of South America. It seemed a worthy ambition ”“ no major rock bands had yet taken that continent’s audiences seriously enough to mount such a major effort. The first concert was to take place in Buenos Aires, and would be the country’s largest to date. A military dictatorship was running Argentina at the time, waging a “dirty war” on leftists and common citizens, killing up to 30,000 during its reign. Queen tried to rationalize the visit. “We were play­ing for the people,” Taylor said. “We didn’t go there with the wool pulled over our eyes. However, their reputation was damaged. The image grew even worse when Queen agreed to play 12 performances in Bophuthatswana, South Africa, at the Sun City Super Bowl in October 1984. South Africa was still in the vicious grip of apartheid, and the United Nations was asking entertain­ers to boycott the country. In addition, Britain’s Musicians’ Union banned any of its members from performing in Sun City. Queen played anyway, despite passionate controversy beforehand in Eng­land, but had to cancel several shows after Mercury’s voice gave out on opening night.

By playing in these nations, it appeared as if Queen were on the side of power. “I don’t like to write message songs,” Mercury said around that time. They were entertain­ers, he asserted ”“ an apolitical band that didn’t sanction the government of a coun­try simply by playing for its citizens. But the backlash remained strong. At the end of 1984, when nobody from Queen was in­vited to participate in the Band Aid chari­ty recording of “Do They Know It’s Christ­mas?” ”“ which had been organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise money to al­leviate famine in Ethiopia ”“ Mercury was genuinely hurt. The group hit a collective depression around this time, and sever­al accounts claim that it considered dis­banding, or at least taking a long sabbati­cal. Mercury would later say, “I don’t know what Queen stand for.”

A few months later, though, Geldof extended an invitation for the band to play at the July 1985 Live Aid London concert (an American concert took place simultaneously in Philadelphia). Queen hesitated at first. They would be per­forming in daylight, which they didn’t like to do, and they worried about sound quality. Also, there would be some sig­nificant competition playing that same occasion in London ”“ Paul McCartney, U2, Elton John, Bowie, the Who, and Sting with Phil Collins ”“ and Queen probably knew they would be seen as the odd fit of the event, given their political blunders in recent years. But Geldof pre­vailed, and 22 minutes after Queen had walked onstage at Wembley in the early evening of July 13th, during Live Aid’s worldwide broadcast, they walked off as unexpected heroes. Elton John found the bandmates backstage in their trail­er. “You bastards, you stole the show!” he told them. “It was the greatest day of our lives,” said May.

The performance immediately re­vivified the band. In September, Queen began work in Munich on A Kind of Magic, and also made preparations for a 1986 summer tour. “I think we are prob­ably the best live band in the world at the moment,” said Taylor, “and we are going to prove it. . . . It’ll make Ben-Hur look like the Muppets.” The shows seemed to live up to the propaganda: This was Queen at their peak in every regard. But Mercury was also having dramatic and unpredictable swings in temperament. During an argument in Spain, he told Deacon, “I’m not going to be doing this forever. This is probably the last time.” The band, said May, felt jolted.

At tour’s end, ticket demand for the con­certs was enormous, and Queen added a new final date at Knebworth Park on August 9th, 1986, playing for an audi­ence of about 200,000. Then, that was it. At the show’s end, Mercury left the concert site hurriedly. It was apparent something was on his mind. He would no longer want to be seen by the audiences that had loved him. Queen had played their last show.