MY STORY
Me and Terry, another Mercury look-a-like
Each fan has his/her own story about how they became fan, and what they
did or experienced as a fan over the years.
"Oh no! How boring.....! " :-) Well, you don't have to read this, just
skip it if you're not interested! :-)))
I'm 30 years old, so during my days as a young child I listened to the
radio a lot, well..it was turned on so it was more background music
actually. It was the seventies, and as we all know Queen got some
well known hits in those days. I undoubtedly must have heard them
on the radio, but I gave no attention to bands and music during
those days. Later on around 1980 my interested in music became
that large that I bought a taperecorder and connected it to my radio. I
was 11 years old...
Recording lots of hits from the charts in those years I build a
collection of a few dozen tapes with all kinds of music. Around
1982 I first got more in contact with Queen
music when a friend from highschool who I was visiting showed and
played for me the soundtrack tape of FLASH. I was not impressed :-)
Then in 1983 I was recording from a Dutch radio programme called
"Working Vitamins", the songs played were (and are still!) chosen
by people from shops and companies and you can hear songs from many years
ago, but also new ones. One of the songs played was "Bohemian Rhapsody"...
Well, that did the trick! :-)
I started wondering who this band was, and
in which songs I heard that singing voice too.. I could only remember
a few songs from the album "The Game", which I was not
aware of that this album existed! :-) Later that summer I bought "The
Game" at a stall during a summer-market in town for just 1 guilder!
(50 US Dollar cents!)
I started to play the record at home and got so exited that I played it
many,many times since then!
The music was sooo cool!!! I liked BoRap the most though at that point
(still do :-))
1984.....at this point I was become a fan of the band, looking for
articles etc. but Queen was in their
"silent" period and not much could be found....than..NEWS!! Queen
released a single and later an album,
"Radio GaGa" was played on the radio and I was addicted ofcourse :-)
When they announced that "GaGa"
was no.1 in the charts I jumped of joy :-) About 2 months later, the
ritual repeated when "I want to break free"
became no.1 too! I found out the address of the International Fanclub
and joined which
cost me 2 months pocketmoney (I did not have much money to spend...) and
lots of trouble to get a
special cheque from the bank to send to England. In the meanwhile I kept
watching TV for anything
about Queen, getting magazines with articles etc. Hearing that the
singer's name was the same as
my own was quite a joy too :-) In 1985 the walls of my bedroom were
almost completely covered with
Queen posters, I managed to hire the old Queen records from the library
and recorded them all on
tape. I had no money to buy them all in the shops, so this was the
cheapest solution.
The pupils on my highschool by now knew that I had become a mega
Queenfan who was constantly
was walking around with a walkman playing his Queen tapes... :-)
Summer 1985 I was on holiday on a campingsite in South-Germany, during
my holiday Live-Aid
took place so, when my parents and holiday-friends were playing and
enjoying themselves in the
open-air, I sat down in the caravan watching a little B/W TV, recording
the sound by listening on a
"Gettoblaster" to a radio-station...:-)
The year went by, and I stopped being a member of the fanclub. It cost
too much money (well, the
fee was not high, but I just didn't had enough pocketmoney to pay it!)
and trouble. I kept ofcourse
being a fan, even more than before!
1986, my pocket money was raised and when the album "A Kind of Magic"
was released, I bought
it immediately, my first new bought album! My father thought I was mad
paying 24 guilders (12 US
Dollars) for an album, a waiste of money! Hum..... :-) I then started to
buy all the other albums, which I
had on tape, second-hand on vinyl. After a while the collection was
complete. For some strange reason
(I think I just plainly forgot about it!) I never renewed my membership
to the fanclub, nor did look for
a Dutch fanclub (which also existed in that period!). I kept looking out
for new stuff, but it took a while
and in 1989 "The Miracle" was released. April 1989 I was drafted and
joined the Royal Dutch Airforce,
in the first 8 weeks of my duty for my fatherland (uuuhhhhh!!! :-) ) the
album was released. It was on a
Tuesday and I remember not being able to buy the CD (times were
changing...:-) ) because I could
not get to a recordshop before closing time! Then 2 days later the shops
were open till late in the
evening...I rushed to the store that afternoon and before I bought the
CD I listened the whole album in the
store! reason being that I had no cd-player in the militairy camp and
therefore was unable to listen there
to the CD! When I got home that weekend I recorded the album on tape and
listened to it many times,
so my pals in the airforce soon knew what a fan I was! :-)
Later that year I read in a magazine about the Dutch Queen Fanclub, I
was surprised that there was one!
I immediately joined, but that was a few weeks after the Dutch Fanclub
convention so I had to wait a
year before I could meet many other Queen fans. By that time I had a CD
player,TV and VCR, so I
bought the whole collection of albums again on CD this time and tried to
get as much as possible on
video. In 1990 I left the airforce and worked parttime while looking out
for a steady job. October came
and I went to my first Queen convention! Boy did I meet many people! I
made many contacts and got
home with lots of Queen stuff and many addresses of other fans! Now I
knew that an International
UK convention also existed and I was sad not to have to money to visit
the 1991 Con.
January 1991 I finally got a steady job as a computer-programmer! I got
money...hurray!!! I left home
to live on my own and started to collect Queen stuff as a mad man!!!
:-)))
October 1991....during the Dutch convention Jacky told the fans that all
rumors about Freddie
were officially denied by the record-company and the boys
themselves.....
25 November 1991....I got up, turned on my radio... and after a few
minutes the DJ brought the
terrible news....I could not believe it!!!!!!! I waited 5 minutes to
hear the official news at 8am, again the
same thing....I went to work with my heart in my shoes.... it was all
over the radio and sometimes
during work I hardly could see my computerscreen through my waterly
eyes.... Most people understood
my reaction, but some colleagues made stupid remarks which I forgave
them, they just simply didn't
understand what being a fans is all about! Later they became more aware
of that... :-)
Only weeks later I could register to come with the Dutch fanclub to the
UK convention. It was my first
time and also I had the money now so I joined the group! A 100 fans
would travel to the UK, twice as
much as normal because lots of people thought that it would be the last
convention!
1992....a month before the convention the Tribute concert took place, I
just had paid for the UK
convention and bought a new bed for my house, I had some money left on
the bank, but it was not
much...I decided not to empty my bankaccount completely and did not go
to the concert.....
Biggest mistake of my life!!!!!!!!! I recorded the gig on video and
audiotape, not answering the phone
ofcourse.... It was a great evening, emotional and I was glad I recorded
it. But...still when I hear
stories from people who were there....I get this feeling of trying to
hit myself on the head for not
going! :-))
May 1992, the I.Q.F.C.C (international Queen fanclub convention) :-) I
met and made new friends already
while travelling with the 100 other Dutch fans to Southport, near
Liverpool. It was simply amazing.....
You'll never forget your first convention I'll tell you! A massive 2000
fans together! Huge disco with
lightning-rigs and videoscreens, long days, almost no sleep, meeting
fans from all over the world....
The atmosphere was sooo FAB!!! I got addicted.... :-)))
From that year on I "invested" my money into a lot of Queen, visiting
Dutch fans, buying records,
swapping recordings, and I kept on visiting the Dutch and UK conventions
year after year....
More Queen fanclub meetings came along, I started to visit the Freddie
Mercury Birthday parties and
Christmas Parties (all in the UK) and 1996 I had visited a total of 6
Parties!!! 3 in the UK and 3 in
Holland! Still being a bachelor I could spend all my money on these
things.... :-)))
At the end of 1996 I joined the Internet. Boy, this new media opened a
new world for me! A cheap and
great way to get into contact with other Queen fans all over the world!
I started my own website:
Freddie's Queen Pages which I renamed later to Queen Cyber Works:
http://come.to/qcw
After joining mailing lists and chatrooms I got new friends in every
corner of the world. Borders are
disappearing..internet brings us fans even more together than in the
past!
1997...another Queen convention, this time a convention not to forget
because I met my nowaydays
"future wife to be" there! We started a relationship a month after the
convention and at the 1999
convention we had a little engagement party :-)
By 1997 I had met Peter Freestone for the first time, I introduced
myself and shaked hands with him
during a Queen party in november 1996. After that I met him again in
1997 at the X-mas party.
In 1998 he started a hotel together with a Queen fan: Gary Taylor, at
the 1998 convention and also before
that, they gave me leaflets and postcards so that I could do a little
advertisement for them on my
website. In 1999 Peter and Gary joined us on our engagement party and
now at the end of September,
my fiance and I will visit Peter and Gary's hotel for the first time!
By August 1999 my website was visited 34.000 times! It grew to over 50
megabytes of photo's, info,
sound-files and more. Leonore and I live together now, you can imagine
how much Queen stuff is in the house now that 2 collections
came together.... :-))) As you can see Queen has become a large
part of my life, even my fiance is a fan! It will never fade away.....
Wow! That was quite some typing! :-) and I still didn't tell you
all, like the concerts which I visited:
-1990, exclusive concert by The Cross in Amsterdam, for 300 Dutch
Queen fans! I was in the airforce then and had to hitchhike home
the last few kilometres to the militairy camp because I had no
money for a taxi with me! I went to bed at 5am, got up at 7am the
next day...aaarrgghh!!! :-)
-1993, Brian May at the Brixton Academy/London, 6 days later
Rotterdam/Netherlands then later in November: Duesseldorf/Germany
-1998, Brian May in utrecht on 23 Sept. and Groningen on 24 Sept.
The Brixton Academy was recorded on video as we all know, and I
can been seen in a flash during the slow part of "We will Rock You"
on the 1st row!
I also have walked around as a Freddie Mercury look-a-like. At the first
convention I saw a mime and Queen Fancy dress competition, I liked it so
much that I started to dress my self too as Freddie! I joined the mime and
fancy dress contest each convention from then on and reached many finals,
though only this year: 1999 I got a prize,3rd place during the mime.
I did manage though to appear on Dutch National TV 3 times, 1 time shortly
on British television and on the official video that was made during one
of the conventions. Also photo's of me appeared in many Dutch news papers
and magazines.
So, I guess I can call myself a real Queenfan heh? ;-)
