Freddie Mercury Tribute Autographed Poster

Here’s a long time sought after memorabilia. An original Freddie Mercury Tribute poster autographed by most of the artists who performed on April 20th 1992. There are different versions of this poster. Not all the ones I’ve seen have the same signatures on it. I think this depends on “when” they were actually signed. Yes, because some of them together with other memorabilia were autographed by the artists during rehearsals made days before the event. Many posters were auctioned for collecting money for the Mercury Phoenix Trust.

The one you see in the photo was certainly signed some days before.  Provenance is from a former Virgin Atlantic Airlines manager who helped artists, especially from USA, to travel and get accommodation in UK at the time of the Tribute event.

The poster was given to him, framed, in the after-party, same night of the event, so this is why I’m sure it was signed before. Another interesting aspect is that I decided to change glass and get a UV-filtered one to protect signatures, and I discovered that it was not actually a paper poster as others I’ve seen in the past, but it’s on thick card!

One of the things I always wanted to do was to detect all the signatures which are on the poster. With the help of my friend and great Queen collector, Giancarlo Calò, here’s our results.

If there is some rock autograph enthusiast out there who wants to double check the autographs, you are very welcome to do so!

1. Pat Badger (Extreme)
2. Derek Smalls (Spinal Tap)
3. Viv Campbell (Def Leppard)
4. J. Vatson (Spinal Tap)
5. Zucchero
6. Kirk Hammett (Metallica)
7. Chris Thompson (chorus)
8. Miriam Stockley (chorus)
9. Phil Collen – (Def Leppard)
10. Liza Minelli
11. Mike Moran
12.  Jason Newsted (Metallica)
13. Brian May
14. Harvey Goldsmith (promoter) (quite sure it’s him)
15. Cindy Crawford
16. Ian Hunter
17. Maggie Ryder (chorus)
18. Tommy Iommi
19. Jim Beach
20. James Hetfield (Metallica)
21. Roger Daltrey (The Who)
22. David Bowie
23. David Richards
24. Lisa Stansfield
25. Josh Mcrae
26. Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)
27. Mick Ronson
28. Duff McKagan (Guns N’ Roses)
29. Roger Taylor
30. Paul Young
31. Rick Allen (180°)