Days of Our Lives (Book 1)

Chapter 4 - Fun It

Saturday, 10th May, 1986

Somewhere on the road to Montreux

Right in the middle, you may say, and you're completely right. After a couple days of working and watching all those rehearsals I already found myself on a tour bus with the boys. Of course I was scared to death, but Jim assured me: this is gonna be nothing. Maybe for you, I told him.

We were heading to Montreux, as Queen got an invitation to Golden Rose Festival. The event was to be broadcast around Europe, but there was one huge problem: because of the complexity of the telecast, the boys were required to mime their performance. They were arguing about it for days, even in the last minutes, if they should take the invitation or not. They hated miming, throughout their career they've always been against it, as they felt they would be cheating the audience, but the opportunity of being seen by many potential viewers was just way too good to pass up. So they made a compromise: they do this one last time and in the future they avoid playback performances.

The tour bus itself was a really comfortable one - not luxury, but practical with all those soft carpet seats. The back of the bus was a little bit modified, seats were formed like a comfortable circular coach around a little table, like a small living room. The boys were keen on to have this exact bus as we had an almost 12 hours of bus ride ahead and their only entertainment (amongst joking around on each other) was playing Scrabble what they did almost the whole time of the bus ride.

It was the same reduced crew heading to Montreux with the boys as on the rehearsals, Ratty, Crystal, Jim, Gerry and myself. Of course Mary came with Freddie and also a guy I just met the first time, who turned out to be Jim Hutton, Freddie's partner. He is a nice guy, but a quiet one and though we had good times together, we never became as close as let's say I am with Jim Beach or John, who sat down next to me on the bus. To be honest at that time he was the closest to me from the band. I went on quite well with Freddie and even Brian (since that day in Shaw I avoided Roger well, we were just saying hello to each other), but John took me out a couple times for a drink after rehearsals and we became let's say friends. Only to clarify, he didn't take me out for the same reason Roger wanted to...we had wonderful times together and talking a lot about everything and anything. In John Deacon I met an incredibly smart and intelligent person, who was shy, cute and adorable and as it turned out, in a hard period in his private life. Soulmates, you may say and you're completely right.

The bus has just hardly started it's way that morning, Freddie already stated himself being the responsible for everyone's well-being, so (I still have no idea where from) he pulled out a couple bottles of vodkas, Ratty took out plastic-cups from his bag and everyone had his/her first drink of the day. After a couple ones Freddie was in his best shape of joking and at one point he named our little group to be The Tour Bus Gang. What a nice name, isn't it? It stuck to us so much, that even Gerry used it in the tour itinerary when he later finished it: The Tour Bus Gang leaves this time, that time, hotel forThe Tour Bus Gang...later Spike, Denis O'Regan, the tour's official photographer and Dieter Breit, the physiotherapist for the boys (and the crew) joined this nice little company.

-Are we there yet? - I yawned much later that day. I looked out of the window but all I could see was complete darkness. John seemed to sleep next to me, and I was wondering, how is he able to, as everyone was talking and loud on the bus. We weren't completely drunk after drinking all that vodka Freddie gave us, but everyone was in a pretty good mood and had a good time.

But John opened his eyes:

-No.

-How much time?