Over the past 15 years, Adam Lambert has played many of the largest concert venues on the planet as the frontman of Queen + Adam Lambert, often facing audiences of well over 50,000 people. But on Oct. 30, he found himself onstage at New York City’s Cafe Carlyle in front of just about 90 fans to perform a one-night-only Halloween show benefitting his Feel Something Foundation, which supports numerous LGBTQ+ causes.
Lambert dropped his new LP, ADAM, in July and has a catalog of other solo albums going back to his days on American Idol, along with covers like “Whole Lotta Love” and “Ring of Fire” that he’s been singing for years. But the vocalist decided to throw out most of his standard repertoire and instead center the evening around Halloween-themed songs like “I Put a Spell on You” and “Bad Moon Rising.”
“Halloween is my favorite time of year,” Lambert tells Rolling Stone via Zoom from his New York City apartment a few days after the show. “We call it Gay Christmas for a reason.”
Lambert spent many Halloweens of the past in Los Angeles, but he recently moved to New York, and made himself an official resident not long ago by going to the DMV and getting his first New York driver’s license. Shortly after our interview, he planned on heading over to his election precinct to vote.
“I’m familiar with the streets now,” he says. “I got a haircut this morning and I walked down to SoHo to do it, and it’s a beautiful day. In L.A., it’s always, you have to get in your car and you drive here, you park here, you get out, you drive here, you park. I really enjoy just walking around. It’s so nice just people-watching and getting fresh air.”
He’s also familiarized himself with the history of the Carlyle, a beautiful Art Deco luxury hotel on the Upper West Side that has hosted artists like Bobby Short, Woody Allen, Eartha Kitt, Rita Wilson, and Art Garfunkel in a performance space/restaurant on the first floor.
“I saw the documentary about the Carlyle, which was really interesting, and so it was on my radar as a cool place to show up,” he says. “It’s so small, but I think that’s the appeal. That’s what was so exciting about it. You get a strong, strong, instant connection with the audience.”
When his manager suggested a benefit concert the day before Halloween, Lambert jumped at the chance. “I didn’t want it to be kitschy Halloween songs,” he says. “We did ‘I Put a Spell on You,’ which is probably the kitschiest one. But I said, ‘I’d like to do songs that just seem like they fit into a dark, romantic, gothic kind of world from different generations and different genres.’ I imagined a vampire that had been around for 1,000 years and he would’ve loved a lot of different songs from different genres.”
That’s why he opened with the 1969 Creedence Clearwater classic “Bad Moon Rising,” and then jumped ahead 37 years to Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black,” before heading back several decades for “I Put a Spell on You” and “Helter Skelter.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever actually done a Beatles song before,” says Lambert, noting he picked it partially because of its connection to the Charles Manson murders. “It’s spooky, it’s scary, it’s murder. I wanted to find songs that felt like they fit in a Halloween world without being like, ‘Happy Halloween!’ It’s a loose sort of connection.”
At the last minute, he added “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas to the set. “I was looking at the set and felt it was getting really dark,” he says. “And I’m like, ‘Is there something that’s a little prettier and more hopeful, but that still works thematically?’ I thought, ‘Well, all we are is dust in the wind. I guess if a vampire goes out into the sun, he turns into dust in the wind.”
The intimacy of the show allowed Lambert to speak with individual members of the crowd, and even gently tell a couple of overzealous fans not to sing along quite so loudly after they joined him on Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.” “No singing along with this one,” he said right before playing Jeff Buckley’s “Lilac Wine.” “If I can hear you and you’re not quite on the same note that I am…I love ya.”
A handful of his own songs, including “Ghost Town” and “Soaked,” worked with the theme of the show. And he didn’t touch the Queen catalog until the very end, when he sent the crowd home with “Another One Bites the Dust.” “It fits the theme and it felt like a nice way to come on for an encore,” he says. “Obviously, Queen is a huge part of my life.”
But Queen + Adam Lambert have been inactive since wrapping up the Rhapsody World Tour at the Tokyo Dome on Feb. 14, 2024. Last month, Brian May sparked headlines around the world by saying he had no desire to tour. “I made a decision 18 months ago that I didn’t want to tour again,” the guitarist told The Times. “I love to play, I love to travel, but the trade-off is sacrificing your freedom. I have a wife [the actress Anita Dobson], grandchildren, and a lot of astrophysics I want to do, so I’m thinking maybe 50 years is enough.”
He later walked the comment back, and told Rolling Stone just a few days ago that he’s truly uncertain about the band’s future as a touring act. “I got kind of misinterpreted, slightly misquoted there,” he said. “I never said we’ll never tour again. I don’t know how I could ever say that. I couldn’t. I feel like I’m on a break, and I’m enjoying my break…Maybe one day I’m gonna wake up and think, ‘Ah, maybe we should get out on the road.’ But I don’t think I will be committing to nine-month-long tours again.”
Lambert says he’s had similar talks with May in private. “He was just like, ‘I’m enjoying being with my family and just not feeling like getting back out on the road at this point,’” says Lambert. “So, I think it’s not like anybody’s saying it’s over or never again, but then again, I did hear that in one of the interviews, so maybe it is and I don’t know.”
The idea of playing Sphere with Queen does excite him. “I went to go see the Grateful Dead, actually, at the Sphere,” Lambert says. “I took my dad for his birthday because he’s a big Deadhead, and I was blown away by what I was looking at. And I immediately emailed Brian and Roger both and went, ‘You guys have to check this. This place is nuts. This is an amazing venue. We could do something so crazy.’ So, I think it’s a fantasy. I don’t know how close to reality it is. I would love it.”
Whatever the future holds for Queen, he’s just happy he was given the chance to be a part of the legacy for so many years. “I’m eternally grateful,” he says. “I will always be grateful and have incredibly fond memories. I mean, would I like to do more with them? Yeah, I would. But if that’s that, then that’s that. You know?”
Just don’t expect him to put together some sort of spin-off group like Adam Lambert’s Queen Experience. “Now that I’ve played with the actual members of the band,” he says, “anything other than that feels a bit cheap.”
Besides, there’s much more than Queen to fill up Lambert’s time in the future. He made his Broadway debut in late 2024 as the Emcee in a revival of Cabaret, and is open to another musical in New York City or possibly London.
“I think if I do another show, I want to create something,” he says. “I want to originate something where you get to collaborate and make it new for the first time. And even if it’s a revival of a show that’s already been around, I want to originate a role in a new production. I was really lucky with Cabaret because they were very collaborative and they wanted me to make it my own as much as possible. But that production was really spearheaded by Eddie [Redmayne]’s vision for the character and that’s how it was built, and I loved stepping in and doing it. But if I do another one, I’d like to be part of that part of the process where you’re developing something.”
That’s why he’s been writing songs for a musical he has in mind about a real-life 1970s musician that he’s not ready to name. “He’s actually kind of obscure,” says Lambert. “He’s not that famous. Yeah, that’s the allure of it, is that he’s like a lost hero.”
Lambert has lined up a producer and possible director for the project, and he’s recording demos and working on the book, but he won’t play the main character if it ever gets off the ground. “I probably am too old to play him at this point,” he says. “He was young, but I would like to be a part of it in another way. So, you’ll have to just wait and see exactly what it’s all about.”
In the meantime, he hopes to get going on his next solo album this winter. “I’m just going to keep making music,” he says. “It’s what I’m about. It’s what I do.”
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