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Seattle, Washington. Show Day

       
2: Portland, Oregon. Show Day

       
3-4: Los Angeles, California. Days Off
     
    Whenever you read Day Off, it usually meant that we were for once able to spend the night in the same city in which the band had justplayed instead of taking the money and running, as Freddie loved to say.
    July 5: San Diego, California. Show Day

       
6: Phoenix, Arizona. Show Day

       
7-13: Los Angeles. Two Show Days. The Forum
     
    Freddie hated performing in the big cities of any country because the reception which the crowd accorded Queen was usually so much more blasé and muted than in smaller cities. Every band and entertainer in the world goes to the major cities, thus contributing to a glut of big shows which means audiences are spoiled for choice. Also, it is in cities like LA, New York and London where a band feels they are under even more intense pressure than usual to do a great show because they will also be entertaining their peers, all of whom will have come along basically to check out the competition. As I’ve already emphasised, one of the maxims Freddie lived by was, “You’re only as good as your last performance.”
    He felt he only had to bungle a high note and rumours started spreading that he was losing his voice and not performing like he used to. Although no one was ever allowed back stage before a show, it was common knowledge who would be out front that night because a star’s staff would have booked tickets either, in our case, via GLS Productions (Gerry Stickells, our Tour Manager’s company) or through the aegis of the local promoter. Saying this, in all the time I knew Freddie, he always relished a challenge and it was a very rare occasion that he didn’t come out on top.
    July 14-15: Oakland, California. Two Show Days

       
16-20: Los Angeles. Days Off

       
21-August 4: Houston, Texas
     
    At this point there was a two-week break in the tour and I went off to visit friends in Houston before flying back to LA when the tour resumed.
    Basically the band’s set – the sequence of songs to be performed that night – was the same in successive shows. Where the tour played more than one date in a city, then the set would change slightly. If anything, Freddie would give a better show out of the big citiesbecause he was more relaxed. His dialogue with the audience, counting the audience as one party and he as the other, was always spontaneous at every show. Freddie followed no script, unlike some performers such as Michael Jackson or Barbra Streisand. Queen shows were always different. Freddie loved singing ‘Love Of My Life’ because of the feeling he got when the audience joined in. And seeing the flames from all the waving lighters in the audience during the ballads gave him a huge buzz.
    August    5: Memphis, Tennessee. Show Day

                 
6: Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Show Day

                 
7: New Orleans, Louisiana. Day Off
     
    Freddie loved New Orleans. It wasn’t only because you could drink twenty-four hours a day, it was a lot to do with the music and overall feeling he got from the city. He always stayed in the same hotel, the Royal Orleans in the middle of the old French quarter, and was thus surrounded by New Orleans jazz all day long. It’s a city that truly never sleeps and we loved exploring all-night bars. One thing I learned almost immediately from Paul Prenter was that an essential component of Freddie’s touring requisites was the
Spartactus Guide
to places of gay interest. This international publication would list all the bars in all the cities in all the countries in the world. There is a separate guide for the United States and Freddie always set time aside for this essential reading. If truth be known, I think these were the only two books he ever read from cover to cover in all the time I knew him.
    August    8: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.