Brian May Was Creating a Queen Avatar Show: Here's Why He Stopped

Brian May says he was creating a Queen avatar show, but ultimately decided to halt his work.

In recent years, shows like the Dio hologram tour and ABBA’s Voyage residency have garnered a mix of criticism and praise. During a recent conversation with Absolute Radio, May revealed he’d started work on a similar concept for Queen.

"We looked at it very seriously, particularly after I saw the [Las Vegas] Sphere and what the Eagles did with the Sphere, which I thought was amazing,” May admitted. “And I spent a lot of time planning out what I thought could be a Queen show. I've kind of backed off now because you can't do it without massive use of A.I., with all the consequences of that.”

May – who elsewhere in the interview warned about the dangers of A.I. – noted that he remains somewhat divided on the concept, both artistically and morally.

“I don't wanna be stealing the work of other people. If you're stealing your own work, I'm not quite sure where I stand on it, because you would be stealing from the Queen oeuvre, which maybe is OK, because that's ours,” he remarked. “But at the same time, you're adding to the stresses that A.I. is putting on the world. So, I don't know. I'm not so keen as I was.”

Though May isn’t comfortable with dependence on A.I., he continues to envision ways to bring Queen to life for new generations of fans.

“I think it would be great to have a permanent place where people could go and feel like they're seeing us play live in our peak, maybe all over the world, maybe at all points in time,” he said. “The doors are open [with A.I.], but I don't know if we're gonna walk through."