Freddie Mercury tribute concert?

No disrespect towards Freddie, but few cited Queen as an influence until he died. I call it Kurt Cobain Syndrome.

The concert was held in April of 1992, 7 months before Keep The Faith was released. The band were writing and recording the record and were probably just too preoccupied with that.

Your statement is disrespectful despite saying 'no disrespect'. And it's just wrong. Curt Cobain died 3 years after Freddie and was around for about 5 years in total. Freddie had an actual Legacy, countless records and a plethora of massive hits.

Freddie was hugely influential before his death, both in the US and the UK. However, I guess where you are coming from is the fact that in the US, Queen did sell a lot more AFTER Freddie's death. Out of the 35 million records they sold in the US, only half were sold before his death. Putting this into perspective, they did sell 300 million records globally.

I'd be surprised if this was the reason, especially for a band that had not been in the public eye at that time. Appearing at such an event could have meant announcing they are BACK while paying tribute to one of the greatest rock singers of all time. The publicity around the event was huge. Not even the 1992 Jon Bon would have said no to that. But that's just what I think. And I mean, how ridiculous does it sound to be 'too preoccupied' to participate in one of the biggest concerts of the decade. I just don't buy it.

And I am really surprised Jon was never asked by journalists in the wake of Keep The Faith. Even the album title would have fitted the actual concert.

I don't think there is any conspiracy. Yes, Def Leppard, GNR were there.. but there were plenty of rock acts who were not. Aerosmith (also formed around 1971ish) I am sure appreciated Freddie.. as I am sure many British artists did, Paul Macca etc.

Bon Jovi were probably just busy or not asked.

andi

Not hinting at a conspiracy at all. Just don't think that Jovi would have turned down this had they been asked, unless they had some properly good reason. Just personally, I would have assumed that they'd be invited given the fact that they were close to Brian May and Roger Taylor in the early 1990s but again, am actually really surprised no one has ever asked Jon about it. It was a MASSIVE thing.

Why is it "wrong"? It's common knowledge that artists, successful or not, see a huge spike in popularity after their death.

Elvis, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston.

In the case of Kurt Cobain, it was different because he pretty much sucked.

Going slightly off topic, does anyone know the deal with the concert Jon and Richie did in Japan around '94 with Roger Taylor doing drums? Was it a festival? And where was the rest of the band?

Wanted

BOR

Makes me think, this and the other times they have jammed (this same era they jammed with Brian May I think, Sleep when I'm dead?) mostly occurred after Freddie's death..maybe they became friends with the rest of the band then.

andi

They jammed together in 1989 (I think Brian May appears in Access All Areas). Jon even says in some interview how Brian May helped him with his 'grey summer' or something like that.

Here we go, from a US Magazine interview, August 1995.

WHAT WAS THE LOWEST POINT? IT SEEMS LIKE IT'S BEEN A PRETTY GOOD RIDE FOR YOU.
There was a time after the '80's, after recording Young Guns, when there was a real crash. We needed to rethink everything because all the innocence was being sucked out. What I wanted to do as a kid had all gotten taken away. And it took a while to come to terms with that. I thought about not doing it anymore or doing it by myself. Because Young Guns was so successful, I certainly didn't need the guys in the band. I had a no. 1 record. I was sitting at the Oscars, which was pretty good. But I didn't want that. I wasn't mad at the band. It was just that we didn't know what was the matter. And it was the machine it had become. So I kept the band and got rid of the machine.

WHO HELPED YOU GET THROUGH THOSE DAYS?
Well, it's very rare that I take someone's advice. But Brian May and Elton John were in our dressing room at Wembley Arena one night, and I was running off the stage, trying to go to a party or something, and Brian more or less grabbed me and said "Take your time. Take this in and enjoy this." At the time Queen wasn't touring anymore and Freddie was ill. And all Brian wanted to do was play for people again.

DID HIS ADVICE HIT HOME?
I realized that America was no more than major cities where you go from airport to the arena to the Four Seasons. It was just a drive all day, pull off at night wherever. Motels, anything more than 25 bucks a night was too good for us. [Nine people made the trips: "Five bikes, four girls" Jon laughs.] And whenever it got dark, that's where we would sleep. Instead of seeing Mount Rushmore out the window of your own private plane and telling the pilot to circle it again, I could really see it the right way.

I remember that article. I always hated his "I don't need the band anymore" comment. Clearly, he was wrong given the commercial failure of Destination Anywhere.

Thanks, but as interesting as that article is, it could still merely have been a couple of brief sentences the two exchanged at a busy after party in the dressing room, I wouldn't read too much into it.

andi