Promotional videos might help songwriting, actually. I think it’s going to be very commonplace where people start recording, even writing, with the video in mind – which is wonderful. It’s another dimension. But a lot of the time people make videos and expect musicians to act out a certain role, and that’s where it falls down. There have been a lot of times where we’ve shied away from that. If you go into a little acting thing, you’ve got to do it really well, and if you don’t, it just comes across as really crass.

You’ve got to be very careful. I think “I Want To Break Free” works because of the fun element and the comedy. It’s so farcical. I can’t think of another video where the four principals, as it were, are actually doing real comedy drag. So often Queen comes across as very serious, when there is actually a lot of tongue-in-cheek there that people miss. The music ability is always there, and we’ve always been humorous underneath, but maybe it didn’t always come across through songs – or on stage, when we’re very aggressive. The humour element is always lost. The “Break Free” video was a good way of showcasing that side of us, and I think we coped quite well.

Freddie Mercury

Queen were always groundbreakers

The beautiful picture was taken by Simon Fowler

11 February 1977, Queen performed at The Philadelphia Civic Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA 🇺🇸 “A Day At The Races Tour”

As seen in the second picture, John Deacon has switched from his 1968 Fender P-bass to a Music Man Stingray.

Freddie’s spectacular 30th birthday set the foundation for his future lavish and expensive iconic celebrations…

The one birthday I’d like to recall in some detail was Freddie’s famous thirtieth birthday party bash in 1977 held at the notorious cabaret club Country Cousin run by Christopher Hunter and our dear friend Cherry Brown.

Freddie insisted that I throw the party for him and make all the arrangements. His single material contribution apart from settling the huge final bill was his week long project of writing by hand every single one of the hundred and fifty invitations. The thought of having them printed was overridden by his original whimsical and charming insistence on writing each one personally although it didn’t occurred to him how long this exercise would take.

The guest list who had been exhorted to ‘dress to kill’, included Elton John, John Reid, Tim Curry, Divine, Kenny Everett, Ken and Dolly East, Jim and Claudia Beach and every luminary in London’s music business. Apart from a very lavish banquet which comprised everything from oysters to lobsters, game to sausages, caviar to kumquats all displayed in table centrepieces which looked like cornucopia, I and Pete Brown, their tour manager, had arranged for the evening’s entertainment a cast of conjurors, acrobats, a snake charming stripper and some clothes-less girls.

The most expensive item on that evening’s bill was the flowers. Freddie adored flowers. Christopher Hunter returned from Covent Garden early that morning with about thirty boxes of blooms – irises, lilies, orchids, freesia, gladioli, roses every flower imaginable which was available at that time of year. These decorated the tables, the pillars, the walls, the bar area and the loos.

The whole effect was spectacular and as his first big party, Freddie’s thirtieth birthday celebration opened the floodgates to what became a tide of lavish and remarkable parties which marked the course of the rest of his life.

David Evans
This Was The Real Life