Queen in Japan, 1985

by Yoko

The moment the lights came back on in Osaka Jo Hall and I heard the announcer, I was brought back to cold harsh reality. It was quite a shock. I had been attending every Queen concert so it had become a daily routine, and it was a really enjoyable production this time around, so my body temperature fell by about five degrees once I realized I wouldn't get to see it again.

Every time Queen came to Japan, the fans would claim that this tour was better than the last, but in the case of the 1985 shows, we could say that and truly mean it. It wasn't a matter of the songs, or even the performance themselves being good... and it wasn't even about the lighting, which I had always looked forward to so much. Why was this Queen show so amazing? The answer came to me through my binoculars from the second floor on the second day as I watched Freddie and Brian walk across the stage side-by-side, laughing. It took me by surprise. The flop of Hot Space in 1982 was really stunning—the American tour that year had an autograph signing session that couldn't even get the crowd excited, and the Japanese tour was a complete failure. But what really struck me in '82 was the way the two frontmen showed no emotional connection to each other whatsoever; that's when I really began to wonder if this band could continue to make music as a group.

But in '85, that seemed to have changed. Later, when I compared the footage of the Seibu (November 3rd, 1982) and Yoyogi (May 11th, 1985) shows, I saw that Brian had changed the most. He was smiling and enjoying himself, a completely different person from the gloomy pensive Brian I saw onstage at Seibu. Seibu Brian was stoic and dour, concentrating completely on his guitar, almost as though he were working to forget something unpleasant. In '85, he didn't show any reluctance when Freddie approached him. Instead, he welcomed him over with poise and an expression that said, "Oh hi! C'mon over here!" He looked like he couldn't be any happier to be onstage.

As for Freddie, he said in an interview at the time that he was enjoying working with the other members again and he was full of energy both in voice and on piano. His vocals were especially perfect. Not to mention, his smile showed up on off days! He smiled like an enlightened Buddha, like he had absolutely no doubts. Three years prior, he went around with a dark and gloomy aura on off days, as if he was carrying the pain of the whole world around on his shoulders. So what on Earth had changed??

Freddie's fans were confused and thrown off by his jolly mood, but on the other hand, he was well-received by the fans of the other members and seemed to be well-liked. To give an example of his aura at this time, I happened to pass Freddie on the shinkansen and my skin tingled, like every nerve was being drawn towards him. That's how free his vibes were of distortion or noise. I found out later that the reason for this was apparently the creation of his solo album Mr. Bad Guy. There was no particular change between him and the others, but things around him had changed and he didn't feel like he had so much weight to pull.

John was still an enigma; it was like he was so unstable and spastic that he paradoxically appeared outwardly stable... In any event, I realized that the power of a group with good interpersonal relationships is amazing. And of course, that played into what happened afterwards at Live Aid.

Well, the most memorable part of the '85 line-up was Radio Ga Ga. It was really moving. The build-up was good, the arrangement was good, and it was fun to do the Ga Ga claps that appealed to the simplicity of Queen fans. I was surprised that they played a few old songs, but as its name suggests, they were giving us the works. That said, I do think they used a little too much synth. I was surprised to hear synths in even the older stuff, and that the "naturally~" response in Killer Queen was a synth voice. Now I'm Here was better. If they used such a lightweight sound for a rock song like that, it would've been really disappointing. As for the rest of the songs, they sounded good. The overall flow was good, and the build-up got more and more exciting as time went on, and at the climax, it all flowed into Radio Ga Ga, which was quite compelling. And, it may be a weird thing to say, but Freddie was a bit reserved onstage. 1985 Freddie didn't run around as much, mostly because of a reported knee injury. He didn't run even a tenth of what he had run in the past, and he also did less posturing. But his voice held out until the very end. Good!

I think of a concert as sex without physical contact. When the people onstage get into the groove and the audience gets excited, that feeds back into the stage which gets the audience even more excited, and it becomes a positive feedback loop. Critics once called it "Queen fascism" but that's just what this musical sex looks like to an outsider. The strength of the bond between Queen and their fans is truly because they shared a love through music. I even think that the reason Queen reached their 20th anniversary and Freddie succumbed to AIDS, which is now frequently recognized as a sexually transmitted disease, was because this band had so much libido. Their shows, which were bright, fun, honest, moving, and somehow elegant, are no longer here. But when I watch the Yoyogi live video, I realize that all Queen fans around the world were loved so earnestly and with so much heart by this band. I'm watching it as I write this, and the tears of gratitude just won't stop. It's annoying, but as you get older you get more sensitive. And this happy memory of being loved by this band ten orders of magnitude more deeply than my feelings of devotion to them is starting to fuel my courage to face the future after losing Queen and Freddie.



Addendum: I have found this related anecdote from Yoko elsewhere in my research—



"Queen's final show in Japan, held on May 15th, 1985, was at Osaka Jo Hall. I also attended in Nagoya. We fans had heard rumors that the band was going to break up after the Japanese tour. I heard that during the acoustic set in Nagoya, Brian mentioned breaking up (although he didn't use that actual term) and was crying, saying they'd never come to Japan again. The fans were already all fired up (for what?! haha) when we entered the venue!

But my best friend who attended the 1985 concerts with me corrected me the other day... she said it was the Osaka concert that Brian was in tears at, not Nagoya. She said that he praised the band and the crew, using past tense, as though things were coming to the end of the line. (I have trouble understanding English, and Brian's is particularly difficult to understand!) I thought I remembered seeing a picture someone had taken of Brian wiping away tears, but she reminded me: "YOU were the one who saw this through your opera glasses! YOU told me that Brian was crying!" I don't remember this all these years later."

[Given the fact that Yoko was a member of the Queen Mutual Aid Society, she was most likely the friend quoted in this 1985 concert report. Brian's observed countenance is an interesting revelation given that the Osaka concert was the final show before the infamous Live Aid in the summer of 1985, when the band got a "big shot in the arm" according to Brian May. It's been said that the band actually was on-track to break up in 1985 if it weren't for Live Aid, so it doesn't seem unlikely that Brian would've been feeling especially emotional that night. I don't believe video footage of this moment has ever surfaced, but according to the bootleg recording, what Brian actually said was as follows:

"This is kind of a sad night in a way because it's not only the last night of the Japanese tour; it's the last night of the world tour, so this stuff will never be seen again. I'd just like to take this opportunity of saying that it's not just us four guys that go around the world—it's a complete team, and it's the best team in the world. I'd like to say thank you very much to the Queen crew and everybody who's worked with us. And to you."]



Yoko also had these further recollections:

In the center of the front row of the arena (somewhere between the fifth and tenth rows), there was a group of people in suits or blazers, motionless and watching the stage with their arms crossed. I was sitting near the front, but a little behind them. As the concert began, Freddie came out bravely from stage left, but as soon as he came out he spotted this group of dour people and was like, "What?!" and did a pratfall.

The first song was Tear It Up and the second was Tie Your Mother Down... and yet these guys in the audience kept their arms crossed the entire time, not responding at all! Freddie seemed stunned for a while, but then he switched to singing with even more determination, like "I'll get these guys if it's the last thing I do!" Thinking back on it, the group was probably the press or something, people who were there for their jobs rather than for entertainment.

But now, the point of the story:
A little ways away from the group, towards the front left, in the third row directly in front of where Freddie usually sings, there was a very tall young boy who looked to be in his early twenties. This boy was waving his arms and jumping up and down in place from start to finish, except for a few quieter songs. Even watching him from behind, you could see how ecstatic he was to be there. Freddie sometimes stared right at the boy as he sang.

The encore of the show ended with the customary Rock You / Champions, and Freddie left the piano for one last interaction with the fans. In the middle of the song, he leaned over, almost falling off the stage, reached out his right hand to the tall boy who was jumping up and down, and handed him the towel he had been wearing around his neck.

~~~~~

I'm not sure if it was when we were traveling from Tokyo to Nagoya, or from Nagoya to Osaka, but at some point some I and some fellow Freddie fans who were traveling together ended up on the same shinkansen train as Queen and their entourage! Of course, they had an entire premium car all to themselves. We boarded the car at the back of the train. Someone suggested we cut through the premium car they were in to get other the front car! We headed up one-by-one, like we were in line for bungee jumping or something. Summoning all my rare courage, I opened the premium car door and started walking through. I could see the four members of the band (I think they were all there, anyways...) and a group of roadies sitting at the front of the car.

After a second, I heard a clanging sound, like from a toy or something. Freddie, who was hiding in the shadow of a seat from where I was in the aisle, heard the sound and with a smile stood up a little from his seat, stretched out and leaned toward it, saying "What's that?" Wow! He had been sitting facing backwards, facing away from the direction of travel. His face was completely visible to me!

I wasn't even making an effort to see much and somehow I managed to get a great view of his playful place up close. Even when I passed by the group, i looked around to see what had made the sound and saw one of those child's toys where the gorilla bangs the cymbals together.

(The way Freddie reacted to this sound made me think he was a true musician!)

But, being a timid person, I looked down to avoid looking at Freddie as I passed by. Thinking about it now, I wonder if the gorilla was at the entrance to the car where group was heading.

It was surprising that there was no security at all. It reminded me of how carefree things were back then.

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