Queen!

Queen is touring next Spring with Paul Rodgers (Bad Company) on vocals! Straight from the mouth of Brian May:

We are in the process of looking at venues for a QUEEN tour in the spring. It really all came about because of the Fender 50th Anniversary gig that I did with Paul Rodgers. We were both so amazed at the chemistry that was going on in All Right Now, that suddenly it seems blindingly obvious that there was "something happening here". And if we were to play together some more, which we both thought was an exciting possibility, who would be the drummer ??? Well, the expression "No Brainer" comes to mind. Then the UK Hall of Fame awards just came up out of the blue. Apparently we had won one of the categories and the request was there for us to play. I had already had the conversation with Roger at this point, about how brilliant Paul Rodgers was, and, since, very conveniently, he had also been asked to be there, we agreed we would ask Paul if he would team up with us for this event.

The rest in a way is already History. The show went so incredibly well from our point of view, and we got so many rave reactions from out there, we decided almost then and there that we would look at a tour together.

This is what we have been doing over the last two or three weeks, looking at venues, discussing how we might approach our collective material, etc. etc.

It's very exciting .... ever since the run-up to that Awards show, I felt in my waters that something big and scary was happening. Scary because as soon as you press the button for something like this you set a massive juggernaut into motion which cannot be stopped ! So bang goes the home life, and anything else we might have planned for the coming months. Suddenly the QUEEN Phoenix is rising again from the ashes, and will take precedence over everything in our lives. So be it. So there ya go. I won't go into more details right now, but, barring accidents, QUEEN and PAUL RODGERS will be on the road, pretty much for sure, around April 2005.

I went through a big Queen phase a few years ago, and I'm still a big fan. I remember back in high school, Chris and I made up a story that Queen was reuniting with Prince on vocals and we actually convinced a few people it was true. I actually never believed they'd get back together without Freddie though. Apparently, it's only a European tour...for now. Oh well, at least Steve Vai is coming to St. Paul in April. It's been way too long since I've been to a good concert.

Ok, back to my final papers...