I was also born in 1978. One of the few memories I have of actually crying as a kid was when I watched Mercury receive the Brit Award in 1990.
A queen
I’ve forgotten what band he was in though 
Thank you. I watched it last night. Very entertaining.
I’m impressed the guy could sing that well with those teeth. A large overbite, the lower teeth seem pushed inward. I kinda hear a bit of a problem with th.
After watching that, there was a string of related clips. I watched one showing him filming his last video, where he has AIDS and is dying. That was the image I remember, him gaunt and overly made up.
Also, just coincidentally, yesterday on the way home I heard on the radio a live version of a couple of Queen songs.
Good points, but given his reported sexuality he was probably also intrigued by Uranus. 
Heh, thanks for posting that. I haven’t seen that since I watched it on the telly as it was actually happening.
Freddie was quite the showman.
I’m 34 and my exposure to him is mostly “Wayne’s World”.
This is my belief as well.
I knew WHAT Queen was when I was young, 'cause one of my first vinyl singles purchases was Another One Bites The Dust. I didn’t know WHO Queen was until much later.
And even now, though I do love Freddie Mercury, my husband’s two pre-teen boys can tell you the Queen lineup but I can’t. Brian May…um…yeah. I stop there. And I certainly couldn’t pick Brian May out of the lineup.
Thanks so much for that! I’m only ten minutes in and can’t stop grinning.
I love the view of the audience from his perspective. I wonder what if feels like to look out and see that many people absolutely loving what you’re doing.
I’d pay to see that concert.
:smack:
Born '81. I certainly do know Freddie Mercury. I’m familiar enough with how he sounded that when someone played Muse for me a number of years ago, my first reaction was, “did they start as a Queen cover band?”
I was also responsible for procuring one of their concerts on DVD and showing it to someone who had heard Queen but never actually seen them perform before. She described it later as Freddie sort of cheerfully molesting all of the stage gear, and doing unspeakable but awesome things to the piano. 
Knew who he was as a kid in the '70’s. Big fan.
What really blew me away though was when I went to India for the first time in '99 and I met a Parsi who proudly told me that Freddie Mercury was one.
Two things, first of all, I had heard of the Parsi before, but never knew they were the remnants of Zoroastranism. Secondly, Freddie Mercury was, and still is, the only famous Parsi I know of.
This really amazed me. I had read about Zoroastra, but never realized the religion was still alive. I mean it’s older than Judaism, and some say it may even have been the foundation of Judaism.
Anyway, the point is, I knew who Freddie Mercury was back in the late '70’s, but I found out a lot more about him and his religion/ethnicity in Mumbai in 1999.
(I wrote religion/ethnicity because like the Jews, Parsis is both a religion and an ethnic background. I doubt Freddie was very religious so he was probably only ethnically Parsi).
I know who Freddie Mercury is, and I asked my 13-year-old-daughter and she said yes, he was the lead singer in Queen. Perhaps Brits are more likely to know - I wouldn’t expect every teenager to know, but I would expect pretty much every adult in their thirties or over to know, due to Wayne’s World if nothing else. Queen were not exactly an obscure band. So I’m another who thinks the OP was whooshed.
Here is proof of Freddie Mercury’s popularity.
Oh, yes, I was born in '66, so of course I know who he was. I still miss him. No one has matched his showmanship. I’ve made sure my kids know, too.
I am bumping this because I have just heard/seen the most bizarre cover of Bohemian Rhapsody.
William Shatner - Bohemian Rhapsody
Holy. Shatner.
They were in those tasteful corset and brasseire advertisements in Life magazine. Right?
He’s the one with the big hair.
But because it’s uncool to sund like an arena-rock singer they do want to sound like him. And when that’s cool, they jump over to sounding like Phil Collins or Elton John.
I’m in my early twenties and I know who Freddie mercury was. I hate Queen with all my heart, every time I hear his voice I feel like vomiting, but I do know who he was. I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone, at my age or older, who didn’t know who he was. Maybe it’s different in Europe.