Anita Dobson has given an indication as to whether Queen have a future on the road following her husband Brian May‘s health issues.
- READ MORE: ‘Queen days’: Brian May reflects on his rock ‘n’ roll journey
Last September, May revealed he had suffered a minor stroke, saying it came on “all of a sudden, out of the blue” and left him without any control over one of his arms. He said the incident was “a little scary” but praised the “fantastic” medical care he had received.
More recently, on Alan Titchmarsh’s Love Your Weekend, May said he’d experienced a “number” of conditions in previous years. “I’ve been lucky, I get these things, but I seem to be able to get out of them. They give you a wake-up call,” he said.
In addition, in 2020 he was admitted to hospital after suffering a heart attack caused by an arterial disease. He told fans that he was “very near death” after doctors found he had three congested arteries.
Now, Dobson has told The Mirror that although Queen have worked on new music with Adam Lambert, they may not resume full-scale touring. “They will do little bits and bobs, but they won’t do those big tours,” she said.
Indeed, May and drummer Roger Taylor recently spoke about the possibility of an ABBA Voyage-style hologram show.
Touching on “reuniting” with their former bandmates virtually in an interview with Big Issue, May said: “Freddie is still alive through the music that we listen to all the time. In a sense, John is still with us in the same way, but now we have so many other opportunities.”
“I mean things that are immersive, like The Sphere in Las Vegas, it will be possible to give people the experience very closely of what things were like for us when we were Freddie, John, Brian and Roger. And that really appeals to me,” he continued.
May went on to compare their recent live shows to what can be done via holograms: “In our Queen shows for a very long time I’ve been doing ‘Love of My Life’. And in the end, Freddie comes in and joins me as on video. It was just quite simply done, but it’s a way of involving Freddie, and I think we can basically take that a lot further.
He said of a possible hologram-style show: “It wouldn’t be just playing old footage or whatever. it would be creating Queen as if we were creating it today. I’m very taken with the idea that we can be the original Queen again.”
Drummer Roger Taylor then revealed that while he “had a good time” and “enjoyed” the ABBA Voyage show – which debuted in 2022 – he left a showing with mixed feelings: “I didn’t find the actual projections that convincing. I do think technology now has come so much further since the ABBA show started, I think a lot more can be done.”
Last year, speculation emerged that a Queen hologram show was in the works after Mercury Songs Limited – the organisation which has ownership over late frontman Freddie Mercury’s solo works – reportedly filed to trademark his moniker for virtual reality and 3D.
Meanwhile, the band were named the UK’s most-played rock act of the 21st century back in October.
