Queen + Adam Lambert

It’s difficult to think of another group that so thoroughly embraced the showmanship, bombast, excess and underlying camp of rock music as Queen. Under the stewardship of the utterly unique and preternaturally gifted singer Freddie Mercury, the quartet released some of the most enduring, omnipresent singles of the 70s and 80s and combined elements of rock, pop, opera, prog and metal into a concoction that remains truly inimitable to this day.

Queen started out in 1971 when Roger Taylor (drums) and Brian May (guitar) joined forces with Freddie Mercury. Recruiting bassist John Deacon, the quartet began rehearsing and playing the occasional gig as they finished out their respective degrees. By 1973, with university out of the way, they began to take things more seriously, releasing their self-titled album to positive reviews and setting out on tour.

Things picked up pace the following year with their second album, Queen II. A performance of Seven Seas Of Rhye on Top Of The Pops propelled both album and single into the Top Ten, while a US tour with Mott The Hoople helped grow a significant fanbase abroad. By the end of 1974, they’d released another album Sheer Heart Attack and scored a major hit with the single Killer Queen.

Continuing at a determined clip, the band were back in 1975 with album number four, the hugely ambitious A Night At The Opera. Boasting the era-defining single Bohemian Rhapsody – which spent a record-breaking nine weeks at No.1 – the record quickly went Platinum.

No laurels were rested on, as the band set about breaking more records, including one for biggest attendance at their free concert in London’s Hyde Park. A Day At The Races came hot on the heels of A Night At The Opera. The more streamlined and concise follow-up quickly became their second No.1 album in the UK.

The band returned to their eclectic ways with News Of The World in 1977, again scoring huge hits with We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions. Just a year later, they were back with Jazz, their seventh album in just over five years. Once again, the hits kept coming, this time in the shape of Fat Bottomed Girls, Bicycle Races and Don’t Stop Me Now.

At the dawn of the ’80s, Queen appeared unstoppable. The Game became their first US No.1 album and brought with it two US No.1 singles: Another One Bites The Dust and Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Following cult success with their soundtrack to the film Flash, they scored their first UK No.1 single since Bohemian Rhapsody with Under Pressure, a duet with David Bowie, which featured on their 1982 album Hot Space.

In 1984, Queen released The Works, boasting another deluge of singles in Radio Ga Ga, I Want To Break Free, It’s A Hard Life and Hammer To Fall. Two years later, A Kind Of Magic became their biggest album to date in the UK, spending 63 weeks on the album charts and yielding two Top Ten singles in the title track and One Vision. A huge European tour followed, which resulted in the live album Live Magic.

The band’s output slowed in the late ’80s. Unbeknownst to the public, Freddie Mercury had been diagnosed with AIDS, but he insisted that Queen continued to record, releasing The Miracle in 1989 and Innuendo in 1991. In late November 1991, the band revealed that Mercury had AIDS. He died the following day.

In early 1992, the remaining members gathered an all-star cast for a tribute concert to Freddie Mercury at Wembley Stadium. Watched by over a billion people worldwide, the concert featured Elton John, David Bowie, Guns N’ Roses and more and raised millions of pounds for AIDS awareness.

Brian May and Roger Taylor continued making music separately following Mercury’s death, while John Deacon stepped away from music completely. May and Taylor came back together in 2005 with ex-Free and Bad Company frontman Paul Rogers as Queen + Paul Rogers. The trio released one album in 2008 before Rogers departed in 2009.

Following Brian May and Roger Taylor's appearance with Adam Lambert on the final of American Idol in 2009, Queen + Adam Lambert became a long-term proposition, touring extensively with their new frontman. They re-recorded some classic songs for the biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, which won Rami Malek an Oscar for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury.

In 2020, the band released a live album with Lambert Live Around The World. The band had also planned UK dates on The Rhapsody Tour for 2020 but it was rescheduled due to the coronavirus pandemic. In 2021, they announced that the UK shows on The Rhapsody Tour had moved to May and June 2022, with two dates added at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow.