It is 25 years to the day that Freddie
Mercury died. He would have been 70 this year – is the fact you will hear
bandied around. If it’s possible for there to be a ‘greatest’ voice in music,
then Freddie had it. The sound, power and style of delivery transcended mere
talent, there was something divine about it; this is perhaps why it’s
impossible for anyone to cover a song Freddie sang without their performance
feeling lacking in some way. He was arguably the ‘greatest’ (again, if there is
such a thing) front man of all time – he could certainly command a stadium of
over 100,000 people better than anyone else. There is probably no other lead
singer who is so universally adored either – and I know this because I have quite
a few Freddie Mercury T-shirts and, no matter where I wear them or who’s
around, someone always comments and says ‘great t-shirt, Freddie is such a
legend’, or words to that effect. So, to celebrate Freddie (in a slightly weird
way) here is an ill-advised picture of me with some – about half - of my
Freddie T-shirts.
Channel 5 recently released a pretty poor -
and markedly depressing - dramatized documentary, which basically just showed
Freddie getting ill and dying. The best thing about it was JP Blunt playing
Freddie, as he does at least look like Freddie. The rest of the cast was
hysterically badly chosen, and as for their wigs… well, you just have to see
them. Perhaps less depressing will be the long awaited Queen biopic, which
begins shooting in 2017. The film, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, has taken a long time
to get going, with different people cast or rumored to play Freddie. Rami Malek
(off that Mr Robot show) has apparently now been cast in the role. From what I
hear, it’s a film about the band rather than just about Freddie, but the
success of the film will undoubtedly rely on how well the greatly missed luminary
is portrayed. Lower your expectations to maximize chance of satisfaction.
