One of Freddie's telling comments in Budapest

I was just watching this interview, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z0N5NZo5c4, with Queen in Budapest which I'd never seen, funnily enough. Apart from the awful spelling (Roger TaylEr, John Deacan...), it was interesting to hear Freddie respond to some question about returning to Budapest with "If I'm still alive, I will come back". He then looked kind of annoyed, and buggered off.

I know most people here despise talking about Freddie's illness, and that the topic has been discussed ad infinitum in other posts, but I think that line pretty much confirms what most fans (and indeed Brian and Roger) think - that Freddie knew almost for certain that he was sick by 1986. So that line is just another one of his small comments, which, with hindsight, tell us that Freddie went through the Magic Tour knowing his life was soon going to change forever. And yet he still gave it his all.

Hmm, seems a post on this already exists. Note to self: search for similar topics *prior to* not *after* posting. My sincere apologies.

I think you might be reading just a little to much in to this.

Try Paul is dead if I'm not making sense

There are plenty of other examples from 1986 that suggest Freddie knew he wasn't well. Of course it's speculation, but hindsight is 20/20...

http://queenlive.ca/queen/86-06-11.htm
http://queenlive.ca/queen/86-06-28.htm
http://queenlive.ca/queen/86-08-03.htm

Not to mention that by July his goodbyes at the end of gigs were much more heartfelt than they were on previous tours. Compare "let's all go home and get fucked" to "thank you beautiful people."

Myself - I'm absolutely convinced he knew during the tour that it'd be his last.

And at Wembley of course he states that they will stay together until they "*&^% well die" and then play Who Wants to Live Forever right after that.

He knew, more interesting: did the others?

At this point we don't even know if they knew during the making of The Miracle.

Any thoughts on that?

Didn't he tell it to the band during the Miracle sessions? I think Brian said something like that during an interview (maybe even on the 2011 documentary?)

We can be sure Freddie knew "something" is wrong in 1986. He didn't know he's got HIV in 1986 yet according to Peter Freestone

pittrek wrote:

Didn't he tell it to the band during the Miracle sessions? I think Brian said something like that during an interview (maybe even on the 2011 documentary?)

I think it was on DOOL doc or Greatest Hits DVD commentary track. Leaning towards DOOL though.
Brian quoted Freddie. Something along these lines "you know what I'm suffering with. But let's not talk about it and carry on." I think that Brian also said that at that time they decided to share the writing credits so that sort of helped the creative process or something.

Johns reaction at the end of knebworth says it all.. Is my guess

John was going through a rough spot in his own life at that point, too.

The things we'll probably never know. As the old adage goes, "what happens in the band stays in the band..."

kosimodo wrote:

Johns reaction at the end of knebworth says it all.. Is my guess

John's life didn't revolve around Freddie. He probably had scores of other things that were bothering him, and the mortal illness of a friend (actually, co-worker), while sad and all, was barely a priority at that point.

Regarding when Fred told them, etc., remember that a lot of what they say goes through a process of artistic licence and making it sound as dramatic as possible. As commented elsewhere, Brian said Fred'd been recording in the last few weeks of his life, which is technically true but didn't mean the last 2-3 weeks, just the last 28-30 weeks (the last 27 of which were inactive in terms of material that wound up on MiH).

So if they say that Fred told them around the time of 'The Miracle', that could easily mean any point from late 1987 (when they had meetings about the possibility of recording again) to early 1990 (when the video for 'The Miracle' was first broadcast on telly).

Costa86 wrote:
, it was interesting to hear Freddie respond to some question about returning to Budapest with "If I'm still alive, I will come back". He then looked kind of annoyed, and buggered off.
.

i don't think that was about him talking in the context of his "illness" - whether known or not at that stage - because remember, it was a closely guarded secret until at least 1989

i think this is more a case of how long it took queen to go there, and if it took that long again then any of them could be dead - through old age/rock excess

I've mentioned this a few times now but in that recent radio documentary (Mark Goodier, Smooth Radio?) Mary clearly state's that both she and Freddie were well aware of his health situation at the Knebworth show.