Queen Fansite - Biography

Their first South American gig was Buenos Aires on February 28th 1981. They filled three more Argentinean World Cup Stadiums, playing 5 sold out stadium gigs in just eight days. They then played two nights at the massive Morumbi Stadium in Sao Paulo. On the first night 131,000 people attended, and Queen created rock history - it was the largest paying audience for a single band anywhere in the world. During those Iwo nights at the Morumbi Stadium 251,000 people saw the Queen spectacle - that's a bigger audience than most bands can expect in their whole career! Every single one of Queen's albums was in the Top Ten in Argentina during their tour - a first for any band.

Whilst they were in Sao Paulo the band celebrated the fact that the single Love Of My Life had bean in the Sao Paulo singles chart for over 12 consecutive MONTHS! In April 1981 Roger released his first solo album, titled FUN IN SPACE. Queen were back in South America, it was a return trip being hailed as The Gluttons For Punishment Tour. Unfortunately their last two Venezuelan gigs, in Caracas, had to be cancelled as the ex president of the country had died. So the band moved on to play Monterrey and Puebla, just outside Mexico City. Whilst there the band's promoter, Jose Rota, was arrested and jailed - over $25000 bail money had to be paid to release him so the tour could continue!

GREATEST HITS, GREATEST FLIX and GREATEST PIX were released simultaneously in October 1981. Greatest Hits, the album, entered the charts as soon as it was released and has rarely been out of the British charts since! Greatest Flix, the video, was the first real collection of promo videos released commercially by any band. Greatest Pix, the book, was compiled by Jacques Lowe, who was President Kennedy's personal photographer during his term of off ice. It was Jacques personal selection of the greatest Queen pictures of the previous decade.

The bands twelfth album, HOT SPACE, was released on May 21st 1982 whilst the band were in the middle of an extensive European tour. On June 5th of that year they played the huge open air Milton Keynes Bowl. The whole show was filmed by Tyne Tees Television under the direction of Gavin Taylor, to be shown on Channel Four's The Tube programme at a later date. In September 1982 the Japanese record company Mercury Records released an album called Gettin' Smile - which was originally thought to be a bootleg, but was proved lo be the real Smile! In December 1982 Queen made it into the Guinness Book Of Records as Britains highest paid executives.

In January 1983 Freddie began work on a solo album and Roger began work on his second solo album. During the early part of the year Brian had flown out to Los Angeles and gathered together a few close friends in The Record Plant studios in that town. Brian had some basic ideas to work on, but it was generally a lengthy jam session. Brian had no intention of wasting the talents of Edward Van Halen, Alan Gratzer, Phil Chen and Fred Mandel - and so kept the tapes rolling throughout the whole session. The result was the mini album STAR FLEET PROJECT which was released in October 1983.

Queen went back into the studios in August 1983 to start work on their next album. Work commenced at The Record Plant in Los Angeles - the first time they had recorded in America. After a number of months recording switched from LA to Munich, a city that the band spent so much time in during that recording session that they almost thought of it as home!

In February 1984 the band released their 13th album, THE WORKS. Radio Ga Ga, taken from that album, became a worldwide hit, reaching number one in 19 different countries. The video for the single, directed by David Mallett, featured fan club members again. The handclapping chorus became a favourite with live audiences all over the world. Another single from The Works was I Want To Break Free - and that had an even more outrageous video also featuring members of the fan club. The band members dressed as female characters from popular British soap opera "Coronation Street" - when asked "why?" Roger said he had become bored with serious, epic videos and thought it was about time they had some fun and proved they could still laugh at themselves. MTV in America refused to show the video.

In June 1984 Roger released his second solo album, STRANGE FRONTIER. Also in June a company called Guild Guitars launched a special copy of Brian's home made Red Special guitar. It was called the BHM1 and Brian had been closely involved in all aspects of it's production. Sadly, about a year later Brian and Guild had some discussions about the design of the instrument which resulted in Guild ceasing production.

In August Queen flew out to Belgium to start The Works tour. October saw them in Bophuthatswana, South Africa. and a series of gigs at the famous Sun City Superbowl. The gigs themselves were fraught with problems. as Freddie had serious voice complications resulting in cancellations. But the problems were mild compared to what the band returned home to. Because of South Africas apartheid laws, their visit caused much public outcry. The band defended their actions, saying that they were a non-political band and that they had gone out to play music for the people, no other reason.