Memories of Mercury
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| Dakota, with Queen, on tour together in 1980 |
Members of Dakota have fond recollections of touring
with the rock legend
By ALAN K. STOUT
Special to The Times Leader
“Bohemian Rhapsody,” a
full-length feature film depicting the life of the late Freddie Mercury, opens
in theaters across America on Friday. It is expected to take viewers inside the
complex life of the late Queen frontman, who died in 1991, at the age of 45, of
AIDS.
Bill Kelly and Jerry Hludzik,
both natives of Northeastern Pennsylvania, have fond recollections of Mercury.
Though they came from the opposite side of the Atlantic as the British singer, the three men shared one
thing in common: a true love for music. And when their respective bands crossed
paths for several months during the summer of 1980, friendships were formed and
lasting memories were made.
Queen, at the time, was
already a huge act in the United States and around the globe. In prior
years, songs such as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “You’re My Best Friend,” “Somebody To
Love” and “We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions” had lifted the band up the
charts and into country’s largest arenas. But in 1980, with the release of “The
Game,” the group climbed to new heights. The album hit No. 1 on the Billboard
chart and became the band’s best-selling record. Two of its tracks, “Another One
Bites The Dust” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” each hit No. 1 on singles
chart. And Dakota - a band based out of Northeastern Pennsylvania which
featured Kelly and Hludzik - opened most of the shows on Queen’s American tour.
“It’s an amazing story,” says
Kelly, a native of West Wyoming. “Michael Stahl, a good friend of our band, was
running front-of-house sound for Queen on their tour. They already had an
opening act, but they had only done two or three shows when Queen realized that
they were terrible. And so Freddie fired them. The question then came up, ‘What
are we going to do about an opening act?’ And Freddie said, ‘Well, we just
won’t have an opener. We’ll just do a longer set.’ Well … that lasted about two
shows. Freddie couldn’t do it. He had terrible trouble with nodes on his vocal
chords. He could not pull it off. After the second or third show, he came into
the dressing room and said, ‘I’m screwed. I need an opening act. What can I
do?’ And Michael jumped up and said, ‘I’ve got your band, buddy. I’ve got your
band.’ And on the strength of his word, we got put on that tour.”
For Kelly and Hludzik it was
a second brush with national recognition. In 1971, while with the band The
Buoys, they notched a Top-20 hit with the song “Timothy” and were major label
contenders throughout the decade. By 1980, they’d moved on to a new musical
project, Dakota. The group’s self-titled album was released on Columbia Records
and featured the single “If It Takes All Night.” Coincidentally, Kelly says
that on the same day that they found out they had landed the Queen tour, he and
Hludzik had a meeting in New York where the two had two lobbied their record
label for more tour support.
“We needed some financial
backing, and we were not getting it,” he says. “They refused. And as we were
leaving, we said, ‘You know, there’s a very good chance we can get the Queen
tour.’ And they laughed at us. I’m not kidding. They laughed at us. When we
left there, Jerry and I felt like two bumbling idiots. But when we called home,
there was a message from Michael: ‘Be in Baton Rouge tomorrow by 5 p.m. You
have three shows with Queen.”
Their reaction was euphoric.
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| 'Bohemian Rhapsody,’ a
new film depicting the life of Freddie Mercury, opens Friday |
“We were out of our minds,”
he says. “Jerry and I, if nothing else - when we were after something - were
like two pit bulls. And so when this came through, we were totally over-the-top
excited.”
Kelly says that although the
band and its crew were actually just about to go hiatus and were readying for
vacation, they were able to round up the troops and make it to Louisiana by the
next day. Dakota’s three shows went well, and thus an offer was made for the
band to stay on the road with Queen. It would last for two months, from June
through August, and also included shows in Canada. It ended with three nights
at Madison Square Garden in New York.
“What a thrill to take a look
at the marquee, at the Garden, and see, ‘Queen with Dakota.’ “ says Kelly. “Are
you kidding me?”
Kelly says that though he had
great respect for Queen at the time, his own musical tastes leaned more towards
bands such as The Eagles and Poco. He adds that while he had always appreciated
Mercury’s singing voice, and the tone guitarist Brian May got with his
instrument, he admits he didn’t even recognize May when the musician introduced
himself to Dakota backstage on the first night of the tour.
“Of course, after the tour, I
became such a huge fan,” he says. “And not only of their talent, but just
the type of people they were. They were the most humble, professional group of
guys we ever worked with. There was no axe to grind. There was no BS involved.
Anything that they could do to make us do better, every night, they did.”
Kelly says that while standing
off to the side of the stage, he watched Queen’s show every night.
“I watched every single
show,” he says. “I was so blown away by this little 5’8, 140-pound guy who
could take his shirt off, and get out there and prance around in front of
10,000 or 15,000 people and transform into this 6’4, 210-pound guy. I’m
watching this like, ‘How did this just happen?’ He was larger-than-life. And
one of the nicest, most professional musicians I’ve ever been around.”
One of Kelly’s favorite
memories of the tour was knowing - because of the way Dakota was treated - that
the respect was mutual. Queen genuinely liked Dakota.
“So many nights, I’d look to
the side of the stage, and they’d be standing there watching us,” he says.
“They were just so supportive all the time. Thumbs up all the time. They’d
say, ‘Great show, blokes. Great show. (Kelly inserts a British accent.) You’re
making us look good.’ Stuff like that … it was really awesome.”
Hludzik, a native a Hazleton,
agrees.
“Freddie enjoyed what we did,
and that was kind of neat,” he says. “That was once in a lifetime. He, at that
time, was the king. Looking back at it, there aren’t too many headlining acts
that take that time. He could have just brushed us off. It was special.”
Kelly shares another story that
reveals Mercury’s humility.
“We got to Detroit, and
‘Another One Bites The Dust’ was just exploding on the radio,” he says. “One of
the TV stations in Detroit decided they were going to come in and do a feature
on the band, and a part of it was going to be filming Queen in rehearsal,
during sound check. And so of course what that did to us was completely
eliminate our sound check. We had none. Well … Freddie felt so bad that it
interfered with us getting a sound check that he had all of the guys carrying
our gear. So picture Brian May grabbing a couple of my guitar stands and a
guitar and putting them in place and Freddie carrying cymbal stands and putting
them in place. I’m watching this thinking. ‘This is Queen. And they’re helping
us get our gear together so we can do our job.’ It’s totally amazing. Where do
you ever hear of any headliner doing that? They were wonderful.”
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| Actor Rami Malek portrays Freddie Mercury in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ |
One of the great traditions
in rock and roll comes from when two bands that are on tour together are
getting along well and enjoying each other’s company. Usually, that results in
some pranks and hijinks. And the Queen/Dakota tour was no exception.
“Usually when an opening act
spends time with a headliner, you can tell that you’re in good standing when
they start pulling practical jokes on you,’” says Kelly. “Well, Freddie
had a section of his stage that they called his ‘Tooth.’ It was an extension
that went out beyond the stage, and it’s where he would go out and prance
around. It was made of this really shiny, slick material. Freddie came up to me
one night and said, ‘If you want to go out and dance around on the extension,
feel free.’ I thought, ‘Are you kidding me? Absolutely.’
“There was a song called
‘Restless’ on the ‘Dakota’ album, and it had a fiery-type of solo,” he adds.
“I’d run out, just as I was starting the solo, and hit my knees, and slide out
to the edge of the stage. Of course when you slide out to the edge of the
stage, 10,000 people go nuts. It’s kind of fun. So one night, we’re in
Greensboro, North Carolina, and I hit the deck, on Freddie’s stage extension,
and I’m sliding, and I’m sliding, and I’m sliding. I get to the very edge of
the stage and I’m about to go off, and I kick my legs out, and somehow end up
sitting on the edge of the stage, instead of going off into the crowd. I look
down, and there were three members of Queen’s crew getting ready to catch me.
What they had done was super-polished the surface, so that when I hit it, I
went flying.”
Kelly laughs at the memory.
In addition to celebrating
his music, the “Bohemian Rhapsody” film - which was done in cooperation with
surviving members of Queen - is also expected to delve into Mercury’s
sexuality. Though it was more taboo nearly 40 years ago, and Kelly says it was
obvious that Mercury was gay, he adds that it wasn’t given much thought by
anyone on the tour.
“It was what it was,” says
Kelly. “He had a couple of different guys, and when they’d come out, we knew
that was the local boyfriend or whatever. It was never an issue. It was no big
deal. I was so naïve. I was in a conversation with Brain one night, and the
whole thing about ‘queen’ being a gay reference hit me for the first time, and
he just got the biggest kick out of that. He laughed at me for being so naive.”
Kelly says that at the time
of “The Game” tour, both May and Queen bassist John Deacon were married, while
drummer Roger Taylor was a “lover of fine women” and enjoyed meeting them at
shows. Still, there was one night, at Madison Square Garden, when Mercury’s
decadence crept into the backstage area.
“There were two tents set up
backstage,” says Kelly. “If you were heterosexual you went into one tent, and
if you were gay, you went into the other. The heterosexual tent had beautiful
women, who were topless, and were your waitresses. They’d come over and pour
you a beer or get you something to eat. And of course all they were wearing
were little black leather panties. And on the other side, in the other tent,
they had these good looking stud guys in great shape and they’re wearing these
little leather short pants. And that was for the gay crowd. That was the
only blatantly sexual thing I saw on the tour.”
Hludzik also remembers that
night and being backstage, in the straight tent, with his father.
“He was happy,” he says with
a chuckle. “He enjoyed it.”
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| "He was larger than life, And one of the nicest, most professional musicians I've even been around." - Bill Kelly, on Freddie Mercury |
By all accounts, Dakota
enjoyed every minute of its time with Queen. And Hludzik says that as recently
as just a few years ago, he and his wife were guests of May at a show in
Philadelphia where the group was performing with vocalist Adam Lambert.
Backstage, he even got to spend some time with his old travel mate.
“He was super nice to us,”
says Hludzik. “He could not have been any more kind. He was such a
gentleman.”
That, too, is how Kelly will
always remember Mercury.
“The greatest compliment I
ever had as a singer came from Freddie Mercury,” he says. “We were in
Baltimore, and had just finished sound check, and as I was walking backstage I
noticed that Freddie had been listening and watching. And he came up to me and
said, ‘Man, how do you do that night after night after night?’ With all of the
Dakota stuff, I sing atmosphere-high, all the time. I said, ‘That’s how I’ve
had to sing to put food on the table for the past 10 years.’ It was tough,
because he was really struggling with the nodes on his throat, and he’d get
very down on himself that he couldn’t do more than two shows without taking two
days off. And so it was just a wonderful compliment that he gave me.
“Freddie was such a
flamboyant personality,” he adds. “And humility doesn’t necessarily come to
mind when you think of him. But with my one-on-one interactions, I found him to
be humble and sincere.”
This story also appeared in The Times Leader.
(Alan K. Stout has covered rock and pop music in Northeastern Pennsylvania since 1992. His weekly radio show, “Music On The Menu,” airs every Sunday from 9-10 p.m. on The River. Reach him at musiconthemenu@comcast.net)
