{"id":365456,"date":"2026-10-06T03:52:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T03:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365456\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T03:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T03:52:14","slug":"brian-may-of-queen-says-no-more-tours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365456\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian May of Queen Says No More Tours"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have been holding out hope for another massive Queen + Adam Lambert world tour, you may find this disappointing news. Guitarist Brian May of Queen has decided he no longer wishes to tour. \u201cI made a decision 18 months ago that I didn\u2019t want to tour again,\u201d May told The Times<\/a> in a new interview.<\/p>\n

After roughly 50 years of life on the road, the 79-year-old guitarist says the sacrifices that come with touring finally became too much. That does not necessarily mean Queen is finished playing live. In fact, May sounds very interested in finding a completely different way to do it. <\/p>\n

Why Brian May of Queen Is Done Touring<\/p>\n

For May, the decision appears to be less about music and more about everything surrounding it. He recalled being on tour in the United States when a close family friend died. May assumed he could simply fly home for a few days and then rejoin the tour. May recalled the moment, saying, “I\u2019ll just nip home for a few days and come back.\u2019 She looked me in the eyes and said, \u2018You know you can\u2019t do that.\u2019\u201d That moment stuck with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love to play, I love to travel, but the trade-off is sacrificing your freedom,\u201d May said. He added that he has a wife, grandchildren, and plenty of astrophysics work competing for his attention. His conclusion? \u201cI\u2019m thinking maybe 50 years is enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

May had already been hinting that he was reaching this point. In a 2025 Rolling Stone<\/a> interview, he described the strange feeling of waking up in a hotel room and realizing that, despite being one of the most successful musicians in the world, he couldn\u2019t simply leave when something important happened at home. <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve given up my freedom too many times,\u201d May said. Even then, however, he made an important distinction: \u201cI still want to play shows. I still want to innovate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queen\u2019s Last Tour Was Most Likely Their Last<\/p>\n

Queen + Adam Lambert\u2019s most recent run was the Rhapsody Tour, which ultimately wrapped at the Tokyo Dome in Japan on February 14, 2024. If May sticks to his decision, that could be the final traditional Queen tour.<\/p>\n

Lambert has performed with May and Roger Taylor since 2011, helping Queen return to arenas and stadiums without attempting to imitate Freddie Mercury. Instead, the combination developed into its own version of Queen\u2019s live show and eventually became one of rock\u2019s biggest touring attractions.<\/p>\n

But hauling that production from city to city is exactly the kind of commitment May no longer wants.<\/p>\n

Could Queen End Up at the Sphere?<\/p>\n

Here is where things get interesting. May is still fascinated by the idea of creating an immersive Queen experience, and Las Vegas\u2019 Sphere has clearly captured his imagination. After seeing the Eagles perform there, May said he immediately began thinking about what Queen could do with the venue\u2019s enormous screens and technology. He later revealed that he had actually sketched out ideas for an entire Queen show.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do want to do something fairly revolutionary,\u201d May said in his latest interview. He compared the concept loosely to ABBA\u2019s highly successful ABBA Voyage production, although he stressed that Queen would not simply copy that approach.<\/p>\n

May also has reservations about how heavily an immersive production might depend on artificial intelligence. He has expressed concerns about AI as well as the enormous amount of energy required by data centers. So Queen may be done getting on buses and airplanes for months at a time. That doesn\u2019t mean Brian May is ready to put his Red Special back in its case for good.<\/p>\n

Keep Yourself Alive<\/p>\n

After half a century of Queen constantly asking how a rock show could be bigger, louder, and more theatrical, it would actually be pretty fitting if their next chapter wasn\u2019t a tour at all, but rather proof that their spirit is still alive and well. Queen has always been a band built on revolution and evolution. Why should this next chapter be any different?<\/p>\n

SIDE NOTE: Queen Budapest: If you’re a Queen fan (and I’m assuming you are), watch this trailer. It’s a must-see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you have been holding out hope for another massive Queen + Adam Lambert world tour, you may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[51761,664,11365,9,24,63,666,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-365456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-adam-lambert","tag-brian-may","tag-classic-rock","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queen","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}