Brian May has confirmed that Queen’s touring days are over, after the tragic death of a close family friend made him reconsider the time he was spending on the road.
In a new interview with The Times, May explained that he, alongn with Queen drummer Roger Taylor, “made a decision 18 months ago that I didn’t want to tour again.”
“A close family friend died when we were in the States, so I said to my tour manager, ‘I’ll just nip home for a few days and come back.’ She looked me in the eyes and said, ‘You know you can’t do that.’”
“I love to play, I love to travel, but the trade-off is sacrificing your freedom,” he explained. “I have a wife [actor Anita Dobson], grandchildren and a lot of astrophysics I want to do, so I’m thinking maybe 50 years is enough.”
May’s decision also comes amid his growing concerns about touring in the United States. Last January, he ruled out performing in America in the wake of the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, who were killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers deployed to Minnesota.
“America is a dangerous place at the moment, so you have to take that into account,” May told the Daily Mail. “It’s very sad because I feel like Queen grew up in America and we love it, but it’s not what it was. Everyone is thinking twice about going there at the moment.”
May and Taylor last performed as Queen in 2022, at the tribute event for the late Taylor Hawkins. May subsequently toured with Queen and Adam Lambert on the Rhapsody Tour, which concluded in Japan in February 2024.
While May has ruled out returning to the road with Queen, he isn’t closing the door on performing altogether. In fact, he revealed that he is working on the idea of a Queen show at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
May had previously been considering a Queen hologram show, inspired by London’s record-breaking ABBA Voyage experience. He has since backed away from the idea because of the amount of AI that would be required. May has been warning about the potential dangers of the technology since 2023.
“Last year I went to the Sphere, my juices started flowing and I sketched out a whole Queen show,” May said. “I think an immersive experience is still on the cards and it could conquer time and space, but currently you can’t make it without AI and I have serious misgivings about that.”
