First reactions to the These Are The Days of Our Lives Video?

The most incredible thing is Freddie made sure he said final good bye to his audience on record, in person. Not sure how many icons/idols/superstars get to do that.
To me, the video of TATDOOL is full of sadness - the way freddie looks, the B & W. And like someone stated already, the BBC colour footage from earlier this year brought the shock and amazement all over again.

Good question!!

At the risk of sounding like a grandfather, the media was different in those days: no youtube, no queenzone or Brianmay.com

The only access to the band was what was printed in the fan club magazine, the odd snippet on TV or radio or the ranting Murdoch press

Having been a fan since 1977, I didn't hear Freddie's off-stage speaking voice until an Radio1 interview in 1985!!
Freddie's sexuality was a subject not for discussion and he effectively hid that in plain sight for his entire career. As a long-term fan, I know this might be hard to believe, but some of us didn't know that Freddie was gay and most of us didn't care

The first real insight into the band to my mind was The Magic Years boxed set in 1986. It's probably hard to believe, but the shutters really did come down on the band after that; very little promotion for The Miracle and Freddie's virtual absence from the Innuendo promotion (with the exception of the heavily disguised appearances on video)

The first real indication that something was wrong came from the ever unreliable Murdoch press (Andy Coulson would you believe); grainy pictures of Freddie visiting his doctor and another clutching some home-made sconed after visiting his family

At that time, the band were in virtual recluse - in Switzerland and elsewhere, only popping up occasionally on various TV slots.

I distinctly remember a Radio1 interview with Brian, promoting Innuendo (single) where Simon Bates asked the direct question 'how is Freddie by the way?' - ONLY THEN did any real concern spring to mind when Brian reluctantly replied; 'he's kicking like a mule' :-/

And his vocals on Innuendo were so strong that it was hard to believe anything was really wrong despite Freddie's appearance on video (particularly Headlong) - to my mind he just didn't look 'right' and his weight-loss was apparent. Some of us thought that it was simply a case of getting older...
Imagine a family member getting ill - you don't really notice the increments of change

When the announcement was made in November 1991, it was a complete shock (to an avid fan) - I think most of us had no idea that it was as serious as it became

The Days of our Lives video (without animation) was broadcast on the BBC the day after he died. Up until then, I personally was grieving for a lost hero, but at the moment the video appeared, Freddie's appearance was so shocking that his struggle and fate hit home like a sledge-hammer. A tearful moment I will never forget

If only we had known, I'm sure fans would have supported Freddie, prayed for him and let him know how much we loved him

I can't really add to the above except the only appearance was the 1990 BPI awards & even then most people thought "he just doesn't look right"  & nothing further was seen from Freddie officially again apart from the videos.

If that happened now it would be all over the world in seconds & it would be extremely difficult to be in such high denial what with media exposure in this day & age

Well, I was just a nine year old kid at the time and I do not remember when I saw The Days of Our Lives video first, but I do remember clips for Innuendo and Slightly Mad and thought they were scary. Being a kid, I thought Innuendo resembled some sort of a short horror movie and Slightly Mad was not less scary either, for the simple fact that the thin man in the wig looked like he was a living dead:( Sorry, describing it from a child's point of view. There was something very unsettling in the music too, it wasn't just the videos.

The day after Freddie died the BBC did a half hour special, introduced by a very tearful Elton John, the video was shown at the end and was both heartbreaking but cathartic.  Apart from a brief appearance at the Brit awards earlier that year, (or was it the year before) I dont think anyone had really seen Freddie for a while.
He looked so ill, but he said his goodbyes and I cried my eyes out.  I think I'd held on to my tears till then, but can't swear to it. 
That whole weekend is permanently etched in my memory.  On the Saturday my heavily pregnant wife (with our first child) and I made a last minute decision to go and see Wimbledon play Liverpool after they mentioned tickets were still available on the Saint and Greavsie show.
(We lived near Windsor at the time).  on the way back from a very dull 0-0, we were on the A34 listening to the news when they said that Freddie Mercury had announced he had AIDs.  Big shock and the only topic of conversation that night.
On the Monay morning I was woken by Simon Mayo telling me Freddie Mercury had died, put on Breakfast television to find he'd died on the sunday and announced it on Sunday evening.
The Elton John hosted doc was on that night, straight after the news.

Graham in Ottawa

As somebody mentioned above it was the Headlong video somewhat earlier that shocked me more.
By the time it came to the Days Of Our Lives Video it was more sad and upsetting to see him in that state than shocking.

I dont remember the 1st time i saw it but obviously looking back, poor freddie looks awful so frail

back in 91 i was 15 and although i liked Queen i also like a load of other stuff but nothing stood out for me and it wasnt until a few years later that i really started to get into Queen music properly and became the obsessive i am now

You are so right when you said a lot of us didn't know that Freddie was gay nor did we care.  Freddie knew the stigmatism associated with the AIDS virus being perceived as an almost leprosy kind of hysteria so I can understand his not going public with it, we've come far both in understanding and medical breakthroughs but is it so sad it was like that then and too late for him.

great post ANAGRAMER.

Watching the video now makes me feel Freddies saying:

 'Thanks for everything, and don't worry. It's allright! I'm ready for the big party upstaris (or donwstairs)'

The bravery of being filmed like this knowing how private he was still intrigues me to this day.
So i'm just generally impressed everytime I see it.

What moved me the most, when the colour footage came out, was that little part where Freddie is watching the footage of his performance in TATDOOL, seeing the  way he  leaves the frame, looks at it with the gaze of a dispassionate observer, and then says, maybe I was a little too  active there and I should slow  down that movement a little.  It was tough  enough for us to watch him that way  and think of how horrid it must of been for him...how he would have felt watching that footage himself and knowing the world would see it soon is something I'm incapable of even imagining. 

Even if Freddie had decided NOT to work any more and live out the rest of his days waiting for death, he would have still had our respect and nothing about it would have made him any less brave than he already was. But Freddie was Freddie, and to be  able to look at what had happened to his body and still be normal...I guess that's just such a Freddie thing to  do.  

I've noticed though, that in the actual video, they stop precisely at 'I Still Love You' and then move the camera to Roger and Brian, and in half the documentaries, they show that small sweeping  'goodbye' hand gesture that he does after that. I guess the hand gesture was removed so that the image of Freddie gazing at his audience would be stamped in the viewer's mind, as a last  impression... :(

The other thing was the way Deacy, Roger and Brian looked in the footage as well...both Deacy and Roger occasionally look up at Freddie and smile, which I think was their way of saying 'we're in this  together' to him, or maybe just at the irony of the fact that this will be their last video together. And even though  Brian's footage was shot separately, it gels so well with the rest of the video, and you can tell how haggard and depressed he is.

I first saw the video in 1998/99, when I was 14 and watched an all too short VH1 episode on Queen, and that's when I started listening to them. For about another 5 years after that, I couldn't watch it; it was so heartbreaking. By 2003/2004, I was able to and, in 2005, I saw Queen/PR play and was among many who broke down in some major tears when Roger sang it (as everyone knows, it's actually his song). Then, just about six months ago, I watched some behind the scenes footage of it on YouTube, and I was shocked; not by Freddie's appearance, but by his fortitude. He was worried that he "made too many movements" in the video. Here's a guy who is so f@&)ing frail and sick that he can hardly stand, and he's worried about making too many movements. He cared about his friends and his fans. He never blamed anybody for his illness (and I really believe he was infected in NYC around 1981, which is in itself sickeningly unfair, because he never had a chance at prevention) fought it for four years at a time when there was no treatment for it whatsoever (and most people died in nine months) and made great music. I not only think its a beautiful song; that whole album is a masterpiece. It's Queen's return to rock n roll, and also their best album (in my opinion) along with a night at the opera. So I don't pity Freddie when I see that video like I used to. I'm amazed by his strength and his gratitude for those great things that he does have.

I cant remember my first reaction but i remember i had seen it in rockumentary by MTV around 1992/3 with Axl Rose as the host.
The hole documentary was a real schock for me. A rollercoster of emotions having just discovered Queen and Mercury a year before. A very strong expirience like a collage of comeplty different elements i found my shelf intrigued to combine.
It was like anything else i have experienced before or after.
The TATDOOL video with the thin and obliously ill Mercury just took the situation much further 'cos i remeber thinking that this man was about that ill when he aslo recorded The show must go on. It just blew my mind.
The years after i find my shelf looking to that music video with sadness combined with pride. Joy combind with melancholia. And i really feel so close to him there than in any other video. He just makes a true connection looking you in the eyes striped from his power but with the same zest.
Its almost as you san see his soul. Very heavy but poingnant stuff.

My first reaction was a longing for my youth.

I don't think there are many songs that make me think of those days like that song.

The first time I heard it was about three years ago when I was in my late 40's, and it made me think of how I am growing old.

Hi - i live in USA and I remember the documentary Days Of Our Lives that Axl Rose did the commentary, in the late summer/fall of 1991, at the end they showed a clip of These Of The Days Of Our Lives video. For me that was pretty much the clincher that Freddie was seriously ill, there were a lot of signs and Innuendos (pun intended), but I think all of us fans were in denial, but after seeing that video I knew it was a matter of time until he was no more...

HTH

dan