About Queen + Adam Lambert
Queen + Adam Lambert is a collaboration between the active members of the British band Queen and American vocalist Adam Lambert. As with all other Queen performances since 1997, longstanding bassist John Deacon has declined to participate in the project due to his retirement. This is the first long-term collaboration of Queen since the Queen + Paul Rodgers project ended in 2009. Like the previous project, it was made clear that Lambert would not be replacing Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, but rather that he would be featured with the band's active members.
The Queen + Adam Lambert collaboration originated when May and Taylor appeared on American Idol in 2009 when Lambert was a contestant. They began performing occasionally in 2011, conducted a short European tour in 2012, and in 2014 announced a world tour, the Queen + Adam Lambert Tour 2014–2015 with dates in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Europe and South America. In the summer of 2016, the group performed several dates as part of a festival tour in Europe and several dates in Asia. The next year, the group announced a second worldwide tour scheduled for 2017 and 2018. After the success of the film Bohemian Rhapsody , they announced their third worldwide tour called The Rhapsody Tour. This tour took the band back to North America in 2019 and to South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Australia playing stadiums early 2020. The European dates, including 10 shows at The O2 Arena in London, were scheduled for the summer of 2020. These shows have been postponed until 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Joining May, Taylor and Lambert are long-time Queen touring keyboardist Spike Edney, bassist Neil Fairclough and percussionist Tyler Warren. Although there are no immediate plans to release a studio album with this lineup, May and Taylor have stated that there is a possibility of the group recording original material.
Queen and Lambert first performed together in 2009 when Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor appeared as guests on the eighth season of American Idol on which Lambert was a contestant. On the show, Lambert and the eventual winner Kris Allen performed "We Are the Champions" together with the band. Soon after the finale, May indicated to Rolling Stone that he was considering Lambert as a frontman for Queen. May later revealed that he became interested in Lambert as a replacement for Paul Rodgers after watching a video of Lambert's audition for American Idol where he performed "Bohemian Rhapsody".
In November 2011, Lambert joined Queen for a performance at the MTV Europe Awards in Belfast where Queen received a Global Icon Award. It was then reported in December 2011 that Taylor and May had begun discussions with Lambert for him to front Queen in concert. On 30 June 2012, Queen + Adam Lambert played their first full concert at Kyiv's Independence Square for a joint show with Elton John in aid of the Elena Pinchuk ANTIAIDS Foundation.
After their first performance in Kyiv in 2012, a Queen + Adam Lambert mini-tour followed with dates in Moscow, Wrocław, and London. In September 2013, they appeared as a headliner at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas. In March 2014, they announced a 19-date Queen + Adam Lambert North American tour in the summer of 2014, which was then extended to 24 dates. In May 2014, tour dates in Australia were also announced, followed by New Zealand. The band also performed in South Korea and Japan. The tour was then extended to 2015 with dates in Europe and the UK as well as South America.
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