Free Freddie Mercury by Peter Freestone Page B

plenty of time for Freddie to go home to Stafford Terrace, get changed into a pair of shorts and prepare himself generally for the party. While Freddie really enjoyed himself at the party, Bill sulked in dark corners. If he wasn’t the centre of attention, be it as a satellite moon to Freddie’s sun, he tended to be very depressive and morose. Finally, the other on-stage musicians in the support bands arrived. Most party guests got into the spirit and turned up in shorts or suspenders, although I think for some of them it was normal party gear anyway. The Rock’n’America Tour which followed on the heels of the Milton Keynes experience involved Billy Squier as the band’s support act. Freddie’s first meeting with him was unexceptional but it formed the basis of a friendship that was to last. Billy is one of life’s really nice guys. He and Freddie founded a mutual admiration society. Freddie liked Billy’s music so much that when Billy asked if Freddie would help out on a current album project, Freddie was more than happy to oblige.
    Freddie loved being back in New York for July 27 and 28 but, as was always the way in metropoli, hated doing the shows. The people in large cities anywhere in the world were getting harder and harderto please. On August 9, a few tickets, shall we say, had to be put on hold as the personal allocation of Bill Reid, native of New Jersey, for the band was playing the Brendon Burn Coliseum in Meadowlands. I think probably to counter any possibility of Bill’s support group overwhelming Freddie, Freddie brought all of his friends from New York down, Thor Arnold and the gang, any number upwards of twenty people. He didn’t intend to be intimidated by Bill Reid’s cronies on their home turf.
    In Houston, August 20, Freddie returned to a place he was getting to like. He had learned quite a lot about it from Thor who was a regular visitor and Freddie intended spending a little bit more time there when his schedule allowed. A good time was to be had in Houston and Freddie was always up for a good time.
    And talking of good times, on August 25, one of the band’s more accommodating fans arrived at the Mid-South Coliseum gig in Memphis, Tennessee. Because the band were not visiting her home patch of Little Rock, Arkansas, this lady arrived in the early part of the concert day with the intention of orally catering to the physical needs of as many people as possible involved in the show. It goes without saying that Freddie had a certain admiration for this woman’s perseverance, technique and capacity!
    All I remember about the Kemper gig in Kansas City on August 28 is the hotel. There was something about hotels designed in certain eras like ships. The outside of this Kansas example was curved. It was one of the first I’d been in which had glass elevators on the outside of the structure.
    If the prospect provided by the local bars wasn’t good, Freddie was always happy to have an impromptu party or, if one was already arranged, to attend it. In Kansas City, one such party was arranged in the largest suite of the hotel for band and crew and assorted backstage passholders, particularly those given out during the course of the evening to male and female alike and we all know what qualifications are required for that accolade! And if you can’t imagine, get a life!
    Poor Billy Squier got trapped by Bill Reid asking him the most mundane, stupid questions that no one in their right mind would ask. It almost looked as though Bill Reid would rather have gone off with Billy than Freddie that night although as anyone knows, it would never even have occurred to Billy Squier who, in his sweet naiveté,would have just assumed that Bill Reid was merely showing interest in his music. Anyway, I remember returning to the main room at one point to find a couple of the road crew had changed clothes with their respective escorts and were dancing up and down on a big table in black mini-dresses and high heels while