Your 'Bo Rhap' story ... elite QZers needed!

When I was doing the current version of 'Bechstein Debauchery', the section I enjoyed the most was, by far, the interviews (http://sebastian.queenconcerts.com/g-interviews.htm). Back then I thought about a bit called 'Your [i]Bo Rhap[/i] story' which was meant to include the way different people (webmasters, top collectors, biographers) felt the first time they heard it, and when and how (radio, video, the movie, etc).

I dropped it because it would be very hard to try it in the first place, but now I though 'why not?'. Worst case scenario: I don't get enough stories for a new section, no harm no foul.

So please, everybody who wants to tell their [i]Bo Rhap[/i] story and grant me permisson to publish it in my website, please write it here or send me a PM or an e-mail with it.

Cheers!

It was 1975.  I was 16 years old.  At the time, the deepest I got into music was listening to Casey Kasum's American Top 40.  You know - songs like "The Night Chicago Died".

I was just leaving my girlfriends house when Bohemian Rhapsody came on The Midnight Special.  I was spellbound.  I had never seen anything like it.  It changed my life and interest in music forever.

The next day at school I was talking to a friend about the song.  He told me he had the album and it was great! "All full of synthesizers and stuff"  I immediately went out and bought the album and I found it humorous that  in the liner notes it said "no synthesizers".  I fell in love with the music and it took me about a week to get the first 3 albums.

I have been a huge fan ever since; once camping out 7 days to buy tickets to a concert.

Great. Thanks. Btw, which was the concert you camped seven days for?

How many posts do you need to be an elite Qzer?

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[b]sexmachine wrote: [/b]

How many posts do you need to be an elite Qzer?
[/QUOTE]

It's not number of posts, it's number of quality posts.

For example, although I think my post count is 5 figures, the quality ones is just about in 2 figures.

I still have a long way to go.

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[b]sexmachine wrote: [/b]

How many posts do you need to be an elite Qzer?
[/QUOTE]
You may have one or a thousand. If you want to contribute and your message's good, you'll always be an elite QZer for me ;)

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[b]Penetration_Guru wrote: [/b]

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[b]sexmachine wrote: [/b]



How many posts do you need to be an elite Qzer?

[/QUOTE]

It's not number of posts, it's number of quality posts.

For example, although I think my post count is 5 figures, the quality ones is just about in 2 figures.

I still have a long way to go. 




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so true

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[b]Sebastian wrote: [/b]

Great. Thanks. Btw, which was the concert you camped seven days for?[/QUOTE]

http://www.queenconcerts.com/detail/story/505/queen-live-16-09-1980-hilton-coliseum-ames-iowa-usa.html

ok I'll bite- I was lucky when Night at the opera came out- i was friends with a girl who's older brother worked in some part for a record distribution company (don't know who) but I have always been into music since I was little thanks to my older brother who was constantly buying new albums. Anyway my friends brother had a room in the house totally deticated and covered-wall to wall with albums-she showed me a stack that he had just brought home and one of them was Night at the Opera. I brought the album home that day (her brother was out of town) and I must have played it dozens of time-I was hooked for sure. I immedialey bought the rest of their catalog and have been lucky to see Queen 4 times in concert.
thetman

I was working with a particularly troubled horse one day. I was about twelve, I think. It was during The Time Of Shag Carpeting and Elephant Pants. I had the speakers turned up in our outdoor arena, trying to get the horse accustomed to performing with the loud sounds booming through the speakers(it was also an excuse to listen to the radio).
Suddenly, this incredible melody began...this incredible voice, which I only faintly recognized. The horse and I just stopped, and listened. I remember the precise moment because I had never heard anything like that before, nor been so...moved by something I'd heard on the radio. I remember feeling sad, frightened and exhilarated, all at once, during the song.

I am so thankful for that memory, because the horse I was working with that day became my dearest friend, and, later met with a tragic end.

I actually have two BoRhap stories.

I first heard the song up north at the cottage in my uncle's truck when I was 9 - the summer after Freddie died.  We stopped a little ways down the dirt road to drop off a minnow trap that we often put in the river.  We got out of the truck to do the task, and he cranked the stereo to eleven.  It was the Classic Queen CD, which he and millions of other people bought around that period.  It was the second verse of the song, and he air-drummed the drum fill leading into "mamma, oooooh", and I remember being mesmerized by the few minutes of music that followed.  I soon picked up a cassette copy for myself and my love for the band was born.

About a year later, I heard this strange version of the song on the radio, a live version which segued into a couple other songs I didn't know.  I actually didn't think it was Queen, as I noticed Freddie's voice sounded so different live than it did on the record.  But after the song finished, my father confirmed that it was Queen.  It would be the last time my father knew more about Queen than I did.  I soon bought Live Killers, hoping to find that version of the song, but it wasn't meant to be - for a while.  Meanwhile, from listening to the live album, my love for the band was solidified.  Years later, I learned that the version of the song was from the Hammersmith Odeon 1975 show, the medley with Killer Queen and The March Of The Black Queen.

This is even better than I expected. Please keep 'em coming!

1st heard BoRap when in primary school. My sister was taking singing lessons for a part in Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Gondaliers'.
Heard BoRap on small radio and, in my innocence, thought it was part of the operetta she was in!

Then when it came on TOTP have to admit, I was TERRIFIED of Freddie Mercury - the teeth, the hair, the make-up, the white cape!!    (Hammer horror!)
And, for some reason, my young brain was convinced they were French! - no idea why
 
- and thought that Brian May and Clem Clemson (? - Alex Harvey band) was the same person....think I was on too much medication??

Anyhoo - between then and now, saw Queen many times, one particular concert in '82 got a prime front row position one particularly hot day in Edinburgh (queued all day opposite a chicken factory - NICE). 
Fred uttered - 'it's like a bath-house in here - let's all take a shower together!' - all of a sudden I was that terrified small boy once again......

.....I think I still may have - - 'issues' because of that

...thanks Fred

To quote L. P. Hartley;  "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there", and 1975 was a very different place as far as buying music was concerned, and one of my strongest memories of the time, certainly fits into that description.

After the song initially aired on the BBC's 'Top Of The Pops' on the Thursday evening, there was the usual clammer to the local record store to buy the disc with Saturday morning pocket money.

Although a dedicated record shop, with rows of albums under various headings, there was no self-service of singles as such.

The store consisted of a counter, a couple of sales assistants, and usually a loose queue of two or three customers awaiting to be served.

I was after two singles that week: Queen - 'Bohemian Rhapsody', and Billy Connolly 'D.I.V.O.R.C.E.' (I told you the past was a foreign country).

It was while awaiting my turn to be served, that I overheard the 'posh-mum' in front of me - who was obviously doing a bit of shopping for her kids - but who was really 'out of touch' with the 'music scene' of the time.

She knew what she was after - but did not know the band was Queen. She knew what she was after - but did not know the track was called 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. In the end she asked the assistant for the song that was on 'Top Of The Pops' and titled 'Hungarian Melody'.

The shop assistant, being a young girl, and having no idea what she was on about, was floundering on useless, so I interupted and said; "Don't you mean 'Bohemian Rhapsody' - to which the 'posh-mum' replied sternly; "I know what I mean, Thank you!".

So I thought "sod you", and left her to her own devices. Needless to say, she left the shop empty-handed that particular morning, while I went home with another new Queen single.

Result in my opinion!

I remember listening(on 31 december) to the Top 100 from Radio Donna( that station has been replaced with another one called MNM) here in Belgium and since Freddie's death Bohemian Rhpasody was always number 1. It must have been the mid nineties. I was about 9 or 10 years old and that voice just caught my attention. I just found it beautiful but since I was not a big music fan at that age I didn't search for more Queen stuff. It was only some years later(I was 14 then), after my sister introduced me to I want to break free and Radio gaga that I went back to Queen and bought all their stuff. And I thought about that evening again....and that voice...