On September 5, 1987, Freddie Mercury decided to celebrate his 41st birthday with a party far superior to any party he had thrown before. The struggle of Queen’s leader has not been easy. In 1978, on the occasion of the imminent release of the Jazz LP, the artist rented the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans to host five hundred guests; some still remember the naked waiters serving drinks and the dwarves who served them. They walked around the venue, wearing trays on their heads and offering Bolivian cocaine to the participants. A few years later, in 1985, just two months after Queen was crowned the best rock band in the world. Wenbley Live Aid concertThe singer celebrated her birthday with a party at the Hendersons club in Munich, inspired by Truman Capote’s Black and White movie, but it’s so extreme that it’s the author’s Breakfast with diamonds.
But the 1987 party was different. This was not associated with a significant event in the band’s career, nor did it respond to a specific date in the life of the singer, who turned forty last year and who, unfortunately, will not reach the next ten years. In fact, the reason Mercury decided to throw the house on that birthday was because: diagnosed HIV was a disease with a high mortality rate at that time.
“When I asked him about the budget, he laughed and said it wasn’t. If we wanted to, we could freeze the pool and have the elephants slide on it. I just wanted it to be a crazy party,” he recalled. Tony Pike. This Australian businessman settled in Ibiza in 1978. He transformed an old country house into a charming hotel with only twenty rooms, visited by Boy George, Kurt Cobain, Robert Plant or George Michael, among others.indeed that would be what would make it Hotel Pike It has become a haven for international pop stars.
in 1985 Wow He chose this place as the setting for his Club Tropicana music video; his first lines describe very well what that exclusive Mediterranean hotel is like: “Let me take you where membership is a smiling face / Shoulder to shoulder with the stars / Where the strangers are, Hold your hand / Welcome to wonderland under their Panama” [“Déjame que te lleve allí donde el carné de socio es una cara sonriente / Allí donde te rozas los hombros con las estrellas / Donde los extraños de toman de la mano / Y te dan la bienvenida al país de las maravillas desde debajo de sus sobreros panamá”].
a great person
“I met Freddie right after Live Aid. I already knew Jim Beach [representante de Queen] however, it did not coincide with any of the Queen’s members. One day I learned that Freddie and his friends had arrived at the hotel. I went down to the porch to personally greet Freddie and he gave me the most traditional handshakes and an equally traditional “Hello”. That’s it. He didn’t say another word. He was surrounded by Jim Hutton, Peter Straker and Peter Freestone. To alleviate security concerns, they moved to the old part of the hotel, and without another word, Freddie walked past me and disappeared inside. Tom Pike described his first encounter with Freddie Mercury: ‘Oh, no, this is going to be too complicated,’ I thought, from then on he would start frequenting a hotel that he couldn’t miss.
“He was a wonderful person, very attentive to the needs of others, and was always apologetic no matter what. He was eternally grateful to the staff just for doing their job, but that was it,” Pike recalls, always paying attention to the needs of his clients, especially Mercury. “When Freddie was here, he enjoyed dinners and played tennis often. and I played with him even though he was more of an idiot than a player. He also loved to entertain. He might be lying by the pool and would suddenly say, ‘Go get the piano’. Although the piano was a bit heavy, six men managed to sway it and Fred played it for everyone, not just for his own repertoire.” All of Pike’s statements along these lines are taken from an interview. Independent and your books Freddie Mercury: Biography And Queen: definitive biographyboth by Laura Jackson.
A legendary celebration
More than five hundred guests have traveled to Ibiza To celebrate Freddie Mercury’s birthday. Among them is Julio Iglesias. Grace Jones, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Minogue Kylie, Bon Jovi, boy George, Tony CurtisNaomi Campbell or its members Spandau Ballet. I just missed Elton John. At that time, the author Rocket Man It was the subject of a scandal caused by the fake news published by. Sun here it was stated that petty scammers hired their services. Despite suing the newspaper Rupert Murdock The musician thought it would be inappropriate to be seen at a party that was already a scandal before it was held, due to unpredictable coincidences and drug use, as he thought he would later receive a million-pound compensation. .
As he reminded the British newspaper Independent, Pike never provided drugs to his guests. Its policy on these matters was ‘BYOD’ which stands for ‘Bring Your Own Medicine’. [trae tus propias drogas]. This philosophy was broken down only in 1990, when Mercury, who was already very ill, asked me to buy him cocaine. Pike went to see the local police chief, who was a fan of the Queen, and told him about his problem. Despite 232 broken glass and other unforeseen events, the hotelier, who did everything to make Mercury’s 41st birthday a success, except buying drugs, recalled, “I’m not arrested. Let’s leave this here.”
On this occasion, the hotel was decorated with thousands of gold and black balloons filled with helium, which took three days to inflate and almost caused a disaster. To impress one of the guests, one of the attendees decided to light one of them with a lighter, which could cause a chain explosion if the hotel managers did not prevent this in advance. There were also problems with the cake, an impressive piece of confectionery representing Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia, which fell apart a few hours before the event began. Finally, in record time, it had to be replaced by another two meters long, decorated with musical notes. Barcelonathe song that the artist recorded with soprano Montserrat Caballé a few months ago.
This Party 350 bottles of Moet & Chandon champagne were consumed during the three-day eventVisible from the neighboring island of Mallorca, more than a hundred kilometers from the party, fireworks were launched, and as soon as it was over, the legend of the event began. British tabloids, for example, went so far as to publish that organizers were offering guests cocaine instead of sugar to garnish their breakfast cereals. “I don’t get it,” Tony Pike protested, “would you put cocaine in your cereal?”