Март 2009
RICK WAKEMAN: FACE TO FACE WITH BRIAN MAY
RICK WAKEMAN: Most people who climb on the roof of Buckingham Palace get arrested, or they climb through the window and go in the Queen’s bedroom – and get arrested. Our guest today actually had the honour of being invited onto the roof of Buckingham Palace, and getting away with it – Brian May. Welcome Brian.
BRIAN MAY: [Laughs] Took me by surprise there.
RW: Well, that must have been a… I mean, you haven’t done anything like that in your life, have you?
BM: No, and never will again I tell you. I enjoyed it. It was amazing.
RW: Who asked you?
BM: The committee who were organising the party for the Queen.
RW: Was it 2002?
BM: Yes, I think it was. Was it two or three, yeah - and they actually asked me to – they said “We were thinking you might play the National Anthem a bit like Jimi Hendrix, strolling through the State Rooms of Buckingham Palace”, and I went “I don’t think that’s gonna work really”, and I went down there to see them and I said, “You know what would work to make this something epic and something people would remember”, and I said, “I should be up there. I should be the lone piper up on one of your battlements.” And they sort of went into a sort of huddle and I expected them to say “Nah, no - forget it”, and they went “Okay – that’ll be fine”, [chuckles] and then I sort of . . . then me heart kind of jumped, ‘cos I thought, okay, I’ve gotta do this now and it’s not an easy thing to take on obviously.
RW: No. I mean to some extent you’re up for a hiding for nothing if it goes wrong, aren’t you really?
BM: Yeah. There’s a lot to lose. You would look the biggest idiot in the world if you messed up God Save The Queen live – and it had to be live, that’s the thing.
RW: Yeah.
BM: I mean I could not be the person who woke up next morning and had mimed on top of Buckingham Palace, you know.
RW: No.
BM: So it’s very risky, and the risk isn’t that you fall off, the risk is that you make such an idiot of yourself that you’d wanna fall off. So it was very – it was an exercise in facing fear, I have to tell you, ‘cos in the months, I think, couple of months, leading up to that I would drive past Buckingham Palace and get this real thrill of fear in my belly just looking at the place and thinking, “Jesus, I’ve actually gotta do this”, you know, “live in front or a billion people”. But great.
RW: How do you rehearse something like that? Did you go up on the roof to rehearse or….
BM: We did eventually. Yeah, we did rehearse up there. It was very funny. [chuckles] It’s funny because we kind of couldn’t find the way. There was a Spinal Tap moment. They said [adopts posh royal accent] “Oh, yes, yes, come this way” - get in this lift and up we go.” So we go in the lift up to the roof level, and he goes, “OK, oh, oh - actually this isn’t gonna work”, so we went down again and the door wouldn’t open, and then we trudged around different places and found a staircase and eventually we found a way up onto the roof. It was a real – I actually should write a little book about it because it was such a memorable experience and a feeling when it was actually done. I was like “Yes!! Thank you God”, ‘cos in the end you have to, I mean I’m not really a religious person, as you would say, you know, conventionally that is, but you get to the point where you’ve done all your preparation, and you’ve rehearsed and whatever, and you’ve tried to cover every eventuality. You know, it could rain, the strings could go out of tune, the amp could go wrong … and eventually you think, “OK, there is only so much I can do, and the rest IS in the lap of the Gods” – it’s in your Higher Power, you know, and you’ve probably experienced this a well, but, you know. So I actually had to do this thing. I was freaking, and well my wife was very good. Anita was really, and she said “Rehearse”. Now rehearsal is something fairly unfamiliar to me - not to Anita, so I did rehearse and rehearse, but I came to that point where I thought, “Okay, it could still go tits up very easily”.
RW: Did you have any contingency plans like another amp standing by? Was there a crew tech lying on the floor, ready to shove in …
BM: Well my tech was up there with me, and he was actually the first person to play guitar on top of Buckingham Palace roof – Pete Malandrone…
RW: Oh right!
BM: … cos he had to try it out, you know. No, but I had this huge rig on one side - it was amazing – with my three AC30s. On the other side I had a huge monitor from the orchestra, who were about 500 yards away, so if I could’n’t’ve heard them, it would have been a disaster. And I just stood between them and it was amazing sound, once we’d actually got it together.
RW: I can understand, ‘cos how many hundred million people were watching?
BM: Quite a lot, I think.
RW: Yeah. So it’s not….
BM: It’s a one-off experience. Anything that, you know, anything that’s one-off is quite sort of demanding anyway.
RW: Yeah.
BM: If you’re on a tour, you take it for granted – you go quite jolly…
RW: I’ll get that right tomorrow.
BM: Yeah, yeah, that’s right, and but if it’s a one-off and it’s everything depends on it you get very keyed up – you gotta.
RW: Did this committee, who were put together, did they have to get permission from the Queen to do? Were things run by the Queen?
BM: I don’t think they actually asked her every detail. No – I think she’d given the responsibility to some people to put this together.
RW: Had you met her before?
BM: Had I met her? No, I don’t think I had met her at that point. I met her afterwards.
RW: What did she say?
BM: I didn’t meet her on the day – I met, I…
RW: Right. You didn’t see her on the actual event?
BM: No, I think, and I think she – I don’t think she actually saw me do the thing. I think she was probably doing her hair at the time [chuckling] and it was probably rather inconvenient for her. But I saw…
RW: (imitating the Queen’s voice) I say Philip, what’s that?
BM: It was quite funny actually ‘cos I met her a while (after) . . . I was being presented to the Queen as sort of Musicians’ Day or something, and I was there with – a very auspicious occasion – with Clapton and Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, who were all heroes of mine, so I was feeling very “Ooohhh! – why am I here?” kind of thing, you know, and she came on and I said “I was the guy who disturbed you that day by playing on your roof.”, and she went “Oh, was it you!” So, you know, I don’t think it was a big day in her life, let’s put it that way, but it was a big day in my life.
