Those Were the Days of Our Lives

I will never forget watching Wayne's World when I was eight. Wayne and his posse were riding in Garth's AMC Pacer when Wayne said, "I think we'll go with a little 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' gentlemen?"

"Good call," Garth replied.

Wayne put the cassette in, and nothing has been the same for me since.

"What kind of music is this?" I thought. "Is it opera? No, wait, it's rock. No, wait, it's pop. No, wait, it's classical. No, wait..."

I was absolutely gobsmacked to learn that it was all one song.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" broke all the rules, destroying any preconceived notions I had about how songs should be composed structurally and sound thematically. (Yes, even at eight years of age, I was a pretentious asshole.)


Made up of three main sections, the song wistfully drifts from choir-like a cappella to ballad pop, then confidently marches into opera before carelessly crescendoing into hard rock. At the end, it finally nosedives into complete silence... and a gong. It's a fantastic musical journey, and all without a single chorus. It is the most fun song I've ever heard, and it was the perfect introduction to my favorite band. 

People and critics can yap all they want about The Beatles and the Stones, but when it came to music that was remorselessly and relentlessly fun, neither could hold a candle to Queen. Listen to A Night At The Opera, and you'll hear the truth of that very loudly and very clearly with tongue firmly placed in cheek.

Queen could do it all, yet still sound very much their own. They could play something as funky as "Another One Bites The Dust," then go rockabilly on "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," and take you back to the 1920's on "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon" before getting you stomping to "We Will Rock You." Any compilation of theirs is like a roller coaster ride from heaven to the ninth circle of hell, and back again.


Unlike The Beatles or Stones, each Queen member was as skilled writing songs as he was playing his instrument of choice. Drummer Roger Taylor wrote the clap-along anthem "Radio Ga Ga" and the band's best balled, "These Are The Days Of Our Lives." Bassist John Deacon, the quietest of the group, wrote two of Queen's most popular radio staples, "Another One..." and "You're My Best Friend." Guitarist Brian May, who actually made his guitar from fireplace scraps, wrote "We Will..." and "Tie Your Mother Down." And lead singer Freddie Mercury was the father of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "We Are The Champions."


For my money, Freddie was the greatest frontman ever. His voice was operatic, powerful and dramatic. Every prance, every punch in the air, every twist he did with his broken mic stand exuded electricity. With even the simplest vocal exercises, Freddie made the fan at the very back of the stadium feel just as involved as the fan in the front. His charisma was so overreaching, to this day, you will see the most conservative American sing "We Are The Champions" without realizing that it is the most blatant gay anthem of all time. 

As I write this, I am reminded of Queen's show-stealing performance at Live Aid. For 20 minutes, Freddie had Wembley and the world in the palm of his hand. Oh, what I'd give to have been in the audience that day. Alas, I didn't become a true Queen fan until 15 years later.


It'd be fair to say that my high school years were defined by Queen's music. 

Every day my friends and I drove back from school, we'd relive Wayne's World, banging our heads to "Bohemian Rhapsody" and other Queen songs as they blared from my Camry's speakers.

Unsurprisingly, I took band class in high school for the trips. While touring Japan for a series of symphonic performances, my roommates blasted "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Bicycle Race" in our hotel rooms repeatedly, happily offending the girls next door. And when we were forced to sleep, I'd plug in my earphones and listen to Freddie's voice achingly deliver "Somebody To Love," which was his favorite song.

It wasn't before long that the entire school knew that my friends and I were Queen fanatics. And boy did they hate us. Nobody wanted to be on our bus. Nobody wanted to converse with us. Seriously, in the late '90s, who the hell still listened to Queen?

To the chagrin of the rest of the band, we were all in the marching band as well as the concert band. There was no escaping us!

---

At the end of every season, all marching bands in Hawaii compete to see who puts on the best show, and who can earn bragging rights to being the biggest group of no-life losers on the island.

What's funnier is that they actually have judges in these events, who naturally take it all too seriously. The three criteria each band is graded on are "technicality, musicality and general effect." Musicality and general effect are self-explanatory. You either sound good or not, and you either make your audience go "wow," or you don't.

Technicality is the most ridiculous criterion, as it requires one judge, who usually wears thick eyeglasses due to his or her nearsightedness, to see that every band member marches on the right foot with perfect posture, each movement crisp without hesitation.

Confidence is key in marching band. If you mess up, you mess up as loudly as you can. If you halt on a yard line, you better snap and be still once you hit it. Otherwise, this old technicality judge is going to mark your entire band down because of your mistake. Did I forget to mention how ridiculous this all was?

To top it all off, at the end of each performance, the judges collectively rate you as a "superior," "excellent" or "good" marching band. Naturally, they'd make being "good" equivalent to being a failure, and in 1999, my marching band was gearing up for failure.

To say we struggled that year would be an understatement. Since the incoming freshmen marchers were, in a word, morons, we had many late night practices, and endured countless lectures from Mr. Murphy (our marching band teacher, who somehow became a vice principal since I graduated).

And so there we were in November, competing in Kamehameha School's competition, the most prestigious showcase of them all. Our goal was to earn the title of a "superior" marching band. The year prior, we were rated "very good," which everyone took as a severe blow, since unquestionably, the seniors we had that season were the most passionate.

But with them graduated and gone this time, how on Earth were we supposed to be "superior"? We lost some damn good seniors, who played and marched to perfection, and replaced them with the most incompetent group of freshmen I've ever seen. No offense to anybody who graduated high school after 2001, but I think our class was the anti-Midas: everything we touched turned to crap after we left. We were last good thing to happen.

So we get to Kamehameha's field and notice that it is soggy and muddy from the bands before us. There had been heavy rainfall that night, and we were the last competing band to perform. Kamehameha would follow, but of course, the band hosting the competition can't compete in it.

After a trademark Mr. Murphy pep talk, we marched onto the field with a snare drum cadence. And through the rain, we plowed through our show. Some woodwinds were out of tune, since reeds tend to get sharper in cold weather. Some brass players slipped their fingers on their valves, since we all had gloves on. One freshman trumpet player in front of me fell in the mud, but got up and continued on.

We had worked on the show since June, and spent hours upon hours in the hot sun to perfect every detail. I swear to you, I will probably get skin cancer because of this particular marching show.

But you see, judges don't care about how you got to the dance. They don't know about the struggle, nor can they judge us based on it. All that matters is the show. As they say, you got one shot, one opportunity. Everything you've done and worked for has led up to this moment.

I don't know what was going through my head as we performed that night. I don't even remember what songs we did. But I do know that after the rain had settled and we finished our show, the audience applauded forgivingly, if not approvingly. I looked around me and saw all these footprints in the mud of different shapes and depths. If only those judges could understand the drama that went into each one.

It felt like Gettysburg, and all of us thought we had lost the war.

Seriously, I saw bandmates with their heads lowered in shame, crying. It was hilarious. All I wanted to do was go home and watch WWF Smackdown!. Mr. Murphy, meanwhile, had this grin on his face, as if he saw something from the sidelines that we on the field did not.

To his credit, that goofy albino of a man never gave up on us. As much as I'd like to laugh about it, he really was one of the better high school teachers I had.

He kept grinning as we recovered from our attention stance and stood ready as the judges announced their final verdicts for each band.

The technicality judge stood to read the results for us. Sure enough, he had thick glasses, which probably hadn't seen any sort of excitement in years. This competition was as good as it got for him.

"Mililani High School..." he read.

And he paused. A drop of rain fell off the tip of my nose.

"Superior."

I don't remember anything after that. I was tackled by somebody as the band completely lost themselves in elation.

To this day, I'm not exactly sure how we were dubbed a "superior" marching band. I do not know what that judge saw, or what Mr. Murphy saw. Sure, maybe the judge could've been wiping his glasses and missed the freshman falling in the mud. But what did Mr. Murphy see? I know he did not blink during our performance.

Perhaps it was passion. Perhaps it was confidence. Perhaps it was pity.

But as we boarded the buses to go home, us Queen fanatics sat and plugged our CD player into these small Radio Shack speakers, which couldn't fill a jail cell with sound. Freddie's voice could barely be heard, but one of my friends, an alto sax player, started singing.


I've paid my dues, 

Time after time...


Another friend, a trombone player, harmonized along.


I've done my sentence,
But committed no crime...


I put my trumpet aside and joined in.

And bad mistakes,

I've made a few...


And to my surprise, some our haters, joined us.


I've had my share of sand kicked in my face,

But I've come through.
And we go on and on and on and on...


Before I knew it, the entire bus, including those who hated us, hated Queen, and hated us for loving Queen, sang in complete unison.

We are the champions, my friends.
And we'll keep on fighting to the end.
We are the champions,
We are the champions,
No time for losers,
'Cos we are the champions
Of the world...


And suddenly, in that moment, what should have been one of the most frustrating experiences transformed into a fun memory--one that I still look back on with fondness.

On that bus ride home, we all laughed and cheered like a bunch of drunken regulars at a Kaimuki bar. It was a cinematic moment between band geeks, like a rejected scene from Almost Famous. 

I think Freddie would've been rather proud of that moment.

Freddie, like Elton, Michael, and other entertainers who I've admired over the years, was very shy, insecure and private, despite his commanding onstage presence. It came as a shock to many when he died of AIDS in November of 1991. His last official appearance was the music video for "These Are the Days...," which coincidentally was filmed on my eighth birthday. He looked so frail, and in comparison to how vibrant he looked just five years prior, it always makes me sad to see that video.

Fully aware of his mortality, in his final shot, Freddie looks up and whispers, "I still love you," and walks off-camera, as if to say "thank you" and "goodbye" to those who loved Queen through the years.

Today, September 5, 2011, he would have turned 65.

In interviews, Freddie said that all he ever wanted was for Queen to be remembered as a "good band" that made "fun music." But Queen were far more than just "good." They were, in every sense of the word, superior.

Happy birthday, King Mercury.