Do You remember when...

When you got the news Fred died? I was way too young to remember, but it must have been a shock to the system! Any of our older members want to tell what you were doing and what your initial thoughts were? Losing a great singer such as him, Just curious to know.

Sure, returned at work after new year.....

Give it a rest

None of your business what people were doing or thinking 20 odd years ago

Sure, i went to work , (builder) and what a sombre mood for everyone. Had radio 1 on and it was all Queen , naturally. Simon Bates was immense that day, handling everything with great sensitivity and professionalism , i still remember his words to this day.
And a few days later......The traffic news, advising to stay away from (whatever area), as Freddie Mercuy's funeral was taking place!!!!!!!!!!

here. reading this just now.

why did no fucker tell me he died...all this time - i just assumed him and Deacy had become recluses

I remember seeing/hearing Kurt Loder on MTV make the announcement and not thinking too much about it. I was an 18-year-old kid in the American South and my head was just wrapped around myself and my little high school world. I had a vague awareness of Queen as being the band with the Radio GaGa video with the flying car. Now I look back and want to kick myself for not being more tuned in when it happened. Not just Freddie dying but the whole AIDS story that had been unfolding for years. I don't know how to explain it. I was like every other teen at the time, but now I am a huge Queen fan who consumes as much Freddie Mercury as I can in a day. I feel like something really important happened that I missed. Not that I could have done something about it. But that's a time in Queen's history that I think about a lot and really wish I could have been more mature and not living in the U.S. at the time.

i don't understand the "kicking yourself" comment. you weren't missing out on something.... it's certainly not a cause for regret at not being "more tuned in". it's one of those things in life - things happen all the time
just think of the last generation for anyone being born since 2000....twin towers, bin laden, mars lander, michael jacksons death, north korean nukes...youngsters now need not feel regret at not being "tuned"...everything is relative....if you're five yrs old then your toys and mum and dad's love are the only significant things in life
if you're 15 then your friends and what you're doing in the evening is more important than something happening 3000 miles away

i'll give you some examples from my life.....kennedy assassination, martin luther king being killed, aberfan mining disaster, torrey canyon...and countless others...all real tragedies and significant world events....that i was blissfully ignorant of at the time. and they're all much more important than freddie's death.

True, Brenski. But I look back and think that someone I now highly admire was going through so much and I had my head up my a$$ wondering what I was going to wear to prom.

I was 26 and a fan since I was 12. I heard a quick news blurb the night before he passed that he was on his death bed. When they came back from the commercial break I recorded, on VHS, the 10 second report. I couldn't believe it even though I had been collecting newspaper clippings regarding rumors of his health all week. Which I still have. The next day it was all over the radio and television that he passed away. I too remember Kurt Loder on MTV reporting it.

I can't remember. I was 5 years old and was lying in the hospital. A funny coincidence is that I broke my leg and that Freddie also broke a leg when going to the bathroom during his last days.

It's sad that we were going through the same thing at the same time. And we didn't know.
Or at least I didn't know, maybe he did.

In 1991 I was 24 and renting a great house that overlooked our modest downtown. It had a large loft bedroom upstairs and I was laying backwards on my bed, very late in the night, and looking out the large picture window through gnarled tree branches at the lights of my small city. I was in a melancholy mood and there was something about the space in my room that left a lonely feeling that night. Wet snow was falling against the window and quickly turning to water and running down the glass. I remember the sound of the wind and the snow against the window even now. I was listening to my radio and the DJ came on and announced the news that Freddie Mercury had died of AIDS at 45. I was struck numb with shock and sadness and regret and in those moments the water on my window looked like tears. Being in Canada and not an avid TV watcher in that period I had managed to escape the fact that he was ill at all. Queen wasn't then as special as they would become to me much later, but I was definitely very sad for his tragic end and immediately keenly aware of the loss to music I would mull many, many times in subsequent years.

sorry - bore you with a bit of background. up until 90 i'd had every queen vinyl rarity i could hold of - had a collection worth approx £3000 - in those days a lot of money. however, with a young baby to provide for i sold the collection and by 91 was working in london - commuting from the midlands early daily. i was still a huge queen fan, but had bigger priorities than collecting vinyl.

anyhow, was 28 at the time and due to a year of commuting to london - i'd managed to miss almost every bit of queen related news for the year. vaguely remember the Brit Awards and seeing Freddie and thinking "he doesn't look well, he smokes loads....wonder if he's got cancer"

travelling to london, 05:30 am on that monday morning....driving an F-reg montego and the ten mile journey to the motorway was all queen music on the radio....three songs in a row - no idea why....then as i got on the motorway....another queen song, then anothter, then another...then 6am news and - fuck!!! couldn't believe it. oh yeah it all made sense but it didn't at the same time...pulled over onto hard shoulder to take it in....set off again...was in london office by 7:30...by 8:00 the place was buzzing with the news...

As I said earlier I was too self-absorbed at 18, but I don't recall any news or gossip about Freddie's condition leading up to his death. MTV or the radio was always on in my room and I read a celebrity gossip weekly that my grandmother subscribed to. But his death seemed out-of-the-blue to me. Was that the case for everyone in the U.S.? Or was I even more oblivious than I thought?

Half of me was an egg cell sitting blissfully inside one of my mother's ovaries. I didn't hear anything about the news until years later. I guess I just didn't follow current events very well at the time.

[QUOTE] [b]FriedChicken wrote:[/b]
Freddie also broke a leg when going to the bathroom during his last days.
[/QUOTE]
I never heard about that. Where did you read this at?

It's kind of odd - I wasn't alive at the time, and having only become a Queen fan in recent years, I knew about Freddie's death at a time when it really had no personal significance to me. The way his death's meaning has changed for me as I've become more immersed in their music and lives has been quite astonishing, it almost came out of nowhere when I first felt truly sad over his death.