Queen

It was the autumn of 1981, as few times in my hometown, would one of the greatest rock bands of the moment and of all times be presented: Queen. At that time, rock concerts in Mexico were demonized, the national and state governments, were determined to not allow any show of that nature to be presented in national territory. It was pathetic, but it was what lived in that time. It reached the extreme in which only the national rock bands that were to the taste of the son of an ex-president or formed by himself, were the only ones that appeared in very controlled audiences. Therefore, parents were particularly careful and fearful of allowing their teenagers to attend events of this type. I was 15 years old and as you can guess, I was a rock fan like my older brother and when we knew that Queen was going to be in our city, the sweat started to run down our foreheads, it was urgent to be present. He was almost 17 years old; he was in the same age range as me and, consequently, it was going to be really hard to convince our parents that everything was going to be ok, that never anywhere could have a chance like this twice. It was "Queen” or death. Until these days I keep wondering why the decision of the authorities to have allowed the concert, but I still thank – Even more, it would be in a soccer stadium, which implied a huge concentration of people that were difficult to control. The unjust bad reputation that Rock fans had at that time, plus the bad eyes with which the government treated this type of concerts, were the perfect storm but, for some reason and not without some small setbacks, everything was taken out with tranquility and the youth of that time we had the privilege of living up to the great stages of the world; after all, my hometown was one of the two cities where Queen was presented for the only time in Mexico and that had to be appreciated with good behavior, love for music and all the energy. So it was.

I know Queen, yet I do not know Queen at all. I have never ever bought one of their albums, yet I have rocked out with Wayne and Garth many a time during the Wayne’s World “Bohemian Rhapsody” intro, and I have screamed along to “We Are the Champions” during L.A. Kings games’ intermissions with the rest of the stadium. Queen is in our blood, even if we aren’t fully aware of it. There has obviously been a huge resurgence of interest in Queen thanks to the success of the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody – I literally just saw Rami Malek win the Oscar for Best Actor a few days ago, accepting it graciously by saying “thank you, Queen, thank you, guys, for allowing me to be the tiniest part of your phenomenal, extraordinary legacy. I am forever in your debt." Here is an academy award winning actor, having worked his ass off playing such a renowned and unique musical figure - Freddie Mercury, acknowledging that he is but a grain of sand on the shore that is Queen. Queen is, and will forever be, one of the most iconic and talented bands of our time, with Freddie Mercury’s boundless talent up front and center. All the hits are here on The Platinum Collection (Greatest Hits I, II & III) – that is obvious, but what I chose as a more beneficial experience, as I tend to do with best hits collections, is to listen to the songs that are considered hits, yet - tunes that I am not at all familiar with. Admittedly, I never claimed to be a Queen aficionado to anyone, yet I was pretty sure that I have heard all of these songs in passing. Well, I wasn’t exactly accurate on that matter.