Queen in Japan

Front Page

Vol. 15 — Winter 1980

After the in-depth concert reports of vol. 14, this volume is relatively sparse and is filled mostly with Japanese translations of interviews with John and Brian from English music magazines, as well as a letter from Roger to the fanclub. The editor-in-chief of the Japanese fanclub magazines, Keiji Inouye, notes in a handwritten blurb on the last page that he will be stepping down from editor duties and passing the baton to a younger man, Shigeru Arai, under whose short reign the magazine would adopt a somewhat less personal tone. There aren't any fan letters or want ads in this issue.

There are a couple of interesting gossipy items, which may or may not be true. One involves Roger:

Roger was enjoying his summer vacation in southern France, speeding along in his Ferrari, when his engine suddenly exploded. Luckily he managed to escape unharmed, but the next problem occurred when he was riding in his motorboat—he became stranded at sea! He drifted for several hours until he was rescued by the coast guard.

The other involves Freddie:

Freddie's house is heavily guarded, but recently a fan managed to sneak in by mailing herself in a large box that was delivered to his house. Unfortunately for her, it wasn't Freddie who opened the box, but one of his bodyguards, who was not amused. The police were called, which caused a scene, and she was kicked out. It's fine to be crazy for Freddie, but don't try something like this!

By the way, there were rumors recently that Freddie had moved to New York after the Japanese tour last year, but that wasn't entirely true—he merely bought a place in New York to stay in while he's there. When he was in Japan, Freddie complained about the culture shock he experienced in New York. New York is currently experiencing a bit of a boom in popularity amongst the world's biggest artists, so we think Freddie is simply drawn to that atmosphere and wanted a place to stay for an extended period of time because of it.





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