Body Language. Queen

Freddie's Tantrum.

Roger's P.O.V.

"How long we got? Ten minutes? About ten minutes?" Freddie quizzed everybody as he paced the dressing room impatiently.

It was the first show of our tour tonight, we'd arrived in North America a few days ago and now, the tour was officially starting.

I for one was excited, I loved touring and seeing all the different countries, the concerts were just a bonus, although hard work, were still very fun, stressful at times though.

We had all put on our stage costumes for the first time, Brian in a white cape kind of thing with lots of tassels hanging from it, with tight, white satin trousers, John looking sexy in something similar, tight white trousers but a black jacket, myself in black jeans and a vest with chains around my neck...and Freddie was donned in a suffocatingly tight, open chested, all in one body suit covered in a black and white harlequin pattern...he looked sexy, I had to give it to him...although I wasn't too sure about the ballet shoes.

He was pacing the room singing a round of vocal warm ups, Brian was tuning his guitar and John doing the same with his bass...I was just twirling my drum sticks. I just wanted to get out there and do our thing, I hated waiting around.

It was our first show in a while but with the amount of rehearsing and practicing we'd done at home before flying out here and the full run through we'd done earlier today, it already felt like we had done a tour already.

"Guys, can I have you back stage please? You're on in five." One of the tour operators called to us and we followed him through corridors to the back of the stage, Freddie jumping and stretching.

"We need to fucking nail this, okay?" He pointed at the three of us with a look of seriousness in his eye, Freddie didn't fuck about when it came to live shows, it was the best or nothing, there was no in between.

We all nodded at him, we were all a little more realistic than Freddie was, he was a perfectionist and strived for nothing but the best, flawless and no faults, a smooth run through...but the rest of us knew all too well that something, maybe something tiny, but something would go wrong tonight, and quite understandably, it was the first show. Things would only get better with the more shows we did...and mistakes were only human.

But mistakes tipped Freddie over the edge.

"You're on." The man who lead us backstage ushered us on, the stage was pitch black as we liked to have some kind of dramatic entrance, the other three ran onto the stage and I climbed up a platform and situated myself behind my drums.

The audience knew the show was about to start and were screaming very loudly, making me chuckle and grin, I loved hearing them cheer, it made us feel more welcome, a quiet audience was never a good audience.

And soon the lights lifted...and so did the volume.

"Hello, good evening, everybody!" Freddie yelled, out of breath after having already sung our first song, with us not touring for a while I forgot just how good Freddie sounded live.

I cast my vision over to Deaky, bobbing away behind his bass, a concentrating expression on his face...he wasn't very talkative on stage at all...in fact he never really said anything, sung a few backing vocals but that was it...his real presence was his bass playing which never went amiss...he was fantastic.

I caught his eye and he smiled at me, I winked back at him and he looked away with a bashful grin on his face whilst Freddie still conversed with the audience.

The show was going brilliantly in my eyes but every now and again I saw Freddie cast an evil glare at the guys who were working the backstage stuff, like the lights and sound engineers...honestly, I had not picked up on any mistakes but Freddie was so meticulous when it came to perfection, something would go unnoticed and he would act as if the world was ending.