2021-11-24 - 30 Year Anniversary [All Discussion]

Althought it was kept under wraps pretty tight i knew something could be wrong when Freddie didn't appear in the lead single (video) for Innuendo. And when the follow up was made and shot in black and white seeing him i knew something was wrong. And the thing is, still to that point i thought he was just temporarily sick and he would be fine later on. I remember vividly a friend told me on the 23rd of november that Freddie had aids. I still know i didn't believe him. Well, 24 hours later i did.

They weren't big In America at this time, so I didn't think anything until Innuendo came out. The rumors started, and reading Lryics to Slightly Mad and The show Must Go On. That's the first time I thought he might be sick, Axl Rose did that Documentary on Queen, and they showed the newest Video, These Are The Days Of Our Lives.

When the Innuendo video came out. At that time I was in a movie theater with others in the music industry that were quietly discussing that he had AIDS and it was the industry's best kept secret. I pretty much ignored any sign up until that and got in a fight with the guy said it called him a liar. I guess I just wasn't ready.

Goodbye To The Eighties

the same with me. i was so dazzled by The Miracle, Barcelona and Innuendo. One day later I translated Innuendo into my language for the first time. 30 years. As young and naive as I was.

The 'I Want It All' video I think for me. As a 19 year old I was excited to have some new Queen music and the video was being debuted on MTV here in Australia. Although the beard was a different look there was just something about him. I didn't think he was sick or anything but just a bit older looking.

In 1989 I just thought it was their 1989 look. A bit of stubble, a pastiche of the fashionable 50s biker look that everyone was doing then. It had been an eternity since 1986 so I just put any physical changes down to age. They were all doing their own things in the intervening years so the decision not to tour just seemed like a cool reclusive choice to keep some mystique. I guess in hindsight it was but for totally different reasons. By 1990, well, no old rockers looked great in 1990. People commented on it, but it was so fleeting there was no way to study it.

I think deep down though, people started worrying when he called his group 'Queen'

the Brits (for me) - but I really assumed it was cancer (he had smoked a lot prior to '86).
Unbelievably (for most fans of the time) I never had any idea he was dying (or was HIV+) until he was already dead.

I know, huge fan from '74 onward and I hadn't a clue. For the previous two years, I'd been working all over the UK - drive, work, eat, sleep, drive...really didn't see or hear anything that rang any alarms (for me) - news media wasn't the same back then. Then, that Monday (Nov 25th around 5:30am) driving from home to London, Radio 1 playing...Queen song...Queen song...Queen song...Queen song...Queen song...no DJ speak at all I wondered what the f*ck was up. Then 6:00am, the News Bulletin, a sackload of horrible pennies dropped.

Genuinely, never worried (apart from what I suspected was cancer).

When was this?  Late 1989? 

vs





February 18, 1990

Probably going to repeat a lot of what others have said but here goes:

I was aware of the band from about 1984 but it was 1987 before I became a huge fan. There was a three year gap between albums which was longer than any break they'd had before but I just put that down to them doing various solo projects. The first real inkling that something was wrong was when they announced they wouldn't tour The Miracle album. I can clearly remember a Freddie quote from some magazine in 1989: 'I've personally had it with bombastic stage lights and special effects'.

That didn't sound like the Freddie I knew, just three years earlier the massively popular Magic tour was in full swing. But I was in denial as the band were still having hits and making videos. Even as a 13 year old I knew there was something wrong with Freddie in those videos but couldn't put my finger on it. He looked like he had aged 10 years since Live Aid when it had been just four. I assumed the beard and weight loss was a 'new look' for Freddie, he was skinny in the early 70's as well.

My parents refused to buy any tabloid newspapers so it was my 'friends' at school who took great delight in telling me Freddie had AIDS and they had seen pictures where he looked gravely ill. There was no internet back then so I just didn't believe them. But things would take a dark turn with Freddie's appearance at ITV's 'Goodbye to the 80's' event hosted by Cilla Black and then he looked even worse at the 1990 Brit Awards.

Another #1 album and a #1 single in Innuendo followed soon after but by this stage it was clear something was wrong. Again the band announced they wouldn't be touring the album and the Innuendo video itself featured no new footage of the band. Then I'm Going Slightly Mad video came out where Freddie again looked in terrible shape, despite the black and white effect and lots of make-up.

When I got the Innuendo album I realised how sad/downbeat much of it was and The Show Must Go On felt even more of a 'goodbye' song than Was It All Worth It on the previous album. When it came out as a single with yet another 'old clips' video and the legend 'from the forthcoming Greatest Hits II album' on the back I had a feeling that maybe Freddie really did have AIDS. Although even then the band were emphatically denying anything was wrong. In October 1991 issue of Guitar Player magazine Brian was even quoted as saying that Queen 'might tour' in 1992.

When the announcement finally came that he did have AIDS I was a bit shocked but thought Freddie might have a year or so left. I was distraught when his death was announced just 36 hours later. It was hard enough having to go into school on that Monday morning having just learned Freddie was dead. But then I had to face the piss-taking all day about 'gay Freddie getting what he deserved' etc. Horrible times.

I can't quite believe it's 30 years since that day.

In the miracle videos, he was like having good time and energy, when the title track video came out, Freddie was wearing the magic tour outfit, it seemed to me like he was having something with his health. Cancer was my first thoughts.
When innuendo single was released I believed that the video was great idea and fitted the song.
I hadn't seen anything from Brit awards or IGSM, those videos were obvious that something was really bad.

As a teenager at the time, with a better memory of what I was doing in the late 80s than I have for last week, I agree with pretty much everything all the other posters have said. You’re all hitting the nail on the head about what is was like. I feel obligated to defend us from seeming naive or in denial.

If you were a kid, the gap from ‘86 to ‘89 was a loooooong time. I just assumed they’d retired, being so old and past it as they were. So there’s two obvious points to make about their sudden reappearance out of nowhere: They all looked freakin old, (or so I felt at the time) and the music was the total opposite, fresh and youthful. So having done nothing for so long, they were suddenly very prolific and creative. Maybe we thought Freddie was Ill with something, but what if it had been cancer? If he’d had cancer Freddie wouldn’t have been shouting it from the roof tops would he? He was a very private person and he never wanted sympathy. Whatever might’ve been wrong with him, if anything, listening to the new music and watching the videos didn’t mean there was any reason to think he was dying. What if he’d died five years later or ten? The experience of buying The Miracle and Innuendo and wishing they would tour would’ve been pretty much the same. He looked thin. He looked old. The music was great. That was Queen 89-91. Look at Axl Rose. I’ve taken my girlfriend to see Guns n Roses recently and afterwards I showed her one of their shows from 1987. She could hardly believe THAT was Axl Rose. I’m just saying, THAT was Freddie in 1991. People change as they age. (Case in point, what the fuck happened to Al Pacino after the 1970s?)

Gay. Aids. Gay. Aids. It was literally called a gay disease till they changed the name. All anyone knew about Freddie was that he was gay. The fact that the tabloids insinuated he had aids was meaningless. He was gay, ergo…aids.

One particular day all the tabloids had photos of him looking gaunt and one said “Five doctors went to his house” and the other said “Three doctors went to his house” and I thought “Ha! You can’t even get your stories straight.” But by the end of that day I realised that the details didn’t matter and that it must be true.

I just think that there was always a magical aura around Queen and after the three year hiatus the aura came on very strongly that there was something uniquely special about this band and they had become other worldly. I feel it transcended Freddie’s illness, the details of which, the label, are irrelevant. So I don’t think fans were naive to believe the “lies”. The lies were irrelevant to the experience of the music.

I swear , for 1 second in the Wembley '86 footage, Freddie had a look in his eye which slightly freaked me. It stayed with me.