Another Memorial Day is over – what a great remembering of having met with dear friends, of having shared precious moments and deep feelings!

It was good to be at the statue on a sunny Friday evening listening to Jo Asciutto playing Queen on his saxophone. There were many familiar faces and a good selection of new ones. A short bus ride later the audience was gathered at the Cessev, an auditorium at the local college, to watch some rare footage of Queen provided by Greg Brooks.

He was followed by the Dutch group ROCK4. I’m not sure how many people were prepared for their show, but by the second or third song the crowd was totally in awe. The guys performed a selection of Queen’s songs, including the difficult ‘Prophet Song’ A Capella.

During the second part they performed the whole of ‘A Night at the Opera’, incredible. And this was with one performer who had never done a show with them before! The whole audience was on its feet at the end and during the ride back to Freddie’s statue there was a buzz going on the bus. It continued while people gathered round the food and drink stalls by the lake.

Saturday morning fans had the possibility to take a boat ride to see the "Lake House" (or Duck House) and at 10.30am Diana Moseley opened her first ever public exhibition. Having been involved with the designing of Freddie’s costumes for many videos and also the Magic Tour, she had brought a selection of her designs and materials used. Among the highlights was the black shirt that Freddie had worn for ‘Days of Our Lives’ and Greg had brought the white jacket and trousers Freddie had worn for the last tour!

Then, the first conference with Jacky Smith, the president of the International Queen Fan Club, started: it was a relaxed question and answer session with Jacky and me and the audience got to ask some questions as well.

The next person to perform was Diana Moseley. I had some questions prepared for Diana and some of the participants had some, but I marvelled, along with the audience, at how Diana appeared so at home. She said afterwards that she really enjoyed the weekend, meeting so many of you! After a break for the apero, we had the big surprise of the afternoon. Due to Mike Moran not being able (for health reasons) to come for the event, we had innumerable phone calls and finally were very happy to have the agreement of Steve Howe to come and talk for a while. As many of you know Steve provided the ‘Spanish’ guitar on the track ‘Innuendo’. He gave an interesting display on the guitar and talked about his life recording and performing. Another surprise was the brief appearance of David Richards, producer of many of Queen’s albums.

After a meal break, we all made our way up to the NED. We were in for a full evening! A group of young musicians from Lausanne started the evening off in style. A keyboard player, Renaud, had transcribed some Queen and Freddie tracks for a string quartet, keyboard and two voices. Once again our participants were enthralled, this time by Fabrice and his soaring vocals, Roos, the girl singer and the 4 strings with their renditions of the crowds’ favourites.

They were followed by the Czech tribute band Queenie, who fulfilled the audiences need for traditional QUEEN. Michal, the singer with Queenie, had been suffering with flu for the past week and it was a challenge for him to give his best to the Montreux fans. The crowd gave them a good ovation.

Freddie's statue was covered with flowers and various letters, pictures and notes and, late in the evening, most fans were there for a final drink!

Rita, Norbert and I received a lot of comments saying this was the best weekend so far. Thanks! So how do we beat it? Well….. we have had a thought or two…….
We thank everybody for taking part and also special thanks for Jean-Marc Tinguely and his team, without whom this last weekend could not have happened.

Peter Freestone