Goodbye Nelson Mandela... [*]

Zebonka12 wrote:

I might've been more impressed if Freddie had shouted 'fuck Apartheid' in the middle of the show or something.

I too would have loved it if he had shouted that out. But actually, Freddie did not need to shout it out. Just the fact of thousands of 'white' South Africans paying money to watch a coloured (Freddie was a Parsi - a Persian of Indian origin) man perform on stage was a blow to apartheid. Kind of an ironic one, though..?

noorie wrote:
I too would have loved it if he had shouted that out. But actually, Freddie did not need to shout it out. Just the fact of thousands of 'white' South Africans paying money to watch a coloured (Freddie was a Parsi - a Persian of Indian origin) man perform on stage was a blow to apartheid. Kind of an ironic one, though..?

noorie - sorry - but you are definitely in a tiny minority with that mindset. Everything about the gig at the time (i remember reading newspapers and music press) and since has lambasted it as a massive blow against the anti-apartheid movement - and a huge (nay massive, also) PR blunder for everyone connected with Queen.

much as many queen fans would like to - it's impossible to rewrite history - without erasing the facts.

BrENsKi, I guess you are right. Perhaps it is just wishful thinking on my part. I guess, had it been Queen's intention to have Freddie sing there to 'fuck apartheid' it would have been cool. But the intention was probably just to promote Queen and sell more albums. Wow! That sounds so cynical.

cynical but true.
in those days the tours promoted the new album - album sales made money (tours generally lost money)

these days, albums are the "loss leader" almost to promote the tour - which is the moneyspinner



think Sun city & Magic Tours were exceptions - as the only serious money Queen made from touring

Costa86 wrote:

I agree. We all know Queen didn't give a shit about breaking boycotts, and acted like complete capitalist assholes by playing in Sun City in '84. That was wrong. And no rationalising and pseudo-philosophising after the fact by Brian and Roger will change that.

Brian cares more about the God-damn badgers now than he did about the suffering and injustices suffered by the "blacks" and "coloureds" back then. Ok - not playing there wouldn't do shit to help those people - but by playing there, they basically said "Fuck what's going on, we don't care about politics", which should really read "Fuck you, you black, you coloured, we don't give a shit about showing the world we are against the extremely serious abuse you suffer."

Um, you do realize that most of the shows were played for mixed audiences and that they were handing out free tickets to black people at the door, right?

http://www.queenconcerts.com/inc/tickets/1984-10-07.jpg

FreddieCat wrote:

That Brian gratefully calls Mandela "forgiving" may hint to a bit of uncomfortable guilt.

Or maybe he was just referring to how Mandela was forgiving of his captors after being in jail for 27 years, which is why he is one of the most respected people ever to walk the planet?

Are there fans of any other bands who work so hard to denigrate them?

brENsKi wrote:

think Sun city & Magic Tours were exceptions - as the only serious money Queen made from touring

You're suggesting Queen made money in Sun City, but not from any tours through September 1984? Including when they played to hundreds of thousands at the football stadums in South America in 1981? Seems kind of far fetched..