Queen’s Brian May with Adam Lambert
In January, they announced a 26-date summer tour of North America. In April, Queen + Adam Lambert revealed a series of 26 fall dates in Europe, the U.K. and Ireland. And today (June 15), they’ve shared 2018 Australasia dates. The tour will showcase what they describe as “a spectacular new stage production” and a set list that the band hints will provide some surprises. “We’re planning on doing stuff we either haven’t done before or haven’t done for a long time,” says drummer and Queen co-founder Roger Taylor.
Queen + Adam Lambert’s 11-city U.K. and Ireland tour will kick off in Dublin on November 25. The schedule includes two London shows: at the O2 Arena on December 12 and The SSE Arena, Wembley, on December 15. Tickets will be on general sale this Friday April 21 at 10 a.m., with pre-sales starting Wednesday, April 19.
These shows will mark the band’s first full British tour in almost three years, having last performed across the U.K. in January 2015 when they played 10 sold-out shows. Their only U.K. appearance in 2016 was a one-off headlining set at the closing night of the Isle of Wight Festival, part of a 15-date European summer festival tour.
For this tour, the classic rock band will unveil a brand new show including a specially designed state-of-the-art production. The choice of performance material will acknowledge this year’s 40th anniversary of Queen’s biggest-selling studio album, News of the World, which yielded the anthems “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions.”
Watch Queen + Adam Lambert perform these big hits at Rock in Rio 2015…
Queen drummer and co-founder Roger Taylor insists the 2017 tour “will look entirely different to the show we took around before. Production has really changed a lot, the things you can do now, you have a much broader palette, the technology has really come along. We started as an albums band, that’s what we were. The fact that we had hits was just a byproduct.”
Guitarist Brian May confirms Queen’s 2017 shows will have a more ambitious musical agenda. “The general public knows the hits, so you’ve got to cater for that,” he says, “but we can chuck in a few things that people really don’t expect. We’ll do quite a bit more of that this time around. There are so many dimensions to Adam, which of course fits with our music. He can get down and do the rock stuff really dirty, and you have all those dimensions, and we can explore that even more.”
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Adam Lambert welcomes the challenge of digging deeper into the band’s canon of classics. “We thought it would be good to challenge ourselves a bit,” he explains. “Change it up a little bit, change the visuals, change all the technology, change the set list to some degree. We will probably be pulling some other songs out of the Queen catalogue which we haven’t done before.”
Tickets for Queen’s North American summer dates are available here and here.
Europe 2017
November 01 – Prague, Czech Republic – O2 Arena
November 02 – Munich, Germany – Olympiahalle
November 04 – Budapest, Hungary – Sportarena
November 06 – Lodz, Poland – Atlas Arena
November 08 – Vienna, Austria – Stadhalle
November 10 – Bologna, Italy – Unipol Arena
November 12 – Luxembourg, Amneville Galaxie
November 13 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Ziggo Dome
November 17 – Kaunas, Lithuania – Zalgiris Arena
November 19 – Helsinki, Finland – Hartwell Arena
November 21 – Stockholm, Sweden – Friends Arena
November 22 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Royal Arena
U.K. & Ireland 2017
November 25 – Dublin – 3 Arena
November 26 – Belfast – SSE Arena
November 28 – Liverpool – Echo Arena
November 30 – Birmingham – Barclaycard Arena
December 01 – Newcastle – Metro Radio Arena
December 03 – Glasgow – The SSE Hydro
December 05 – Nottingham – Motorpoint Arena
December 06 – Leeds – First Direct Arena
December 08 – Sheffield – Motorpoint Arena
December 09 – Manchester – Arena
December 12 – London – 02 Arena
December 13 – London – 02 Arena
December 15 – London – The SSE Arena, Wembley
December 16 – Birmingham – Barclaycard Arena
Australasia 2018 (Tickets go on sale June 23)
Feb 17 – Auckland – Spark Arena
Feb 21 – Sydney – Qudos Bank Arena
Feb 22 – Sydney – Qudos Bank Arena
Feb 24 – Brisbane – Brisbane Ent. Centre
Feb 27 – Adelaide – Adelaide Ent. Centre
Mar 02 – Melbourne – Rod Laver Arena
Mar 06 – Perth – Perth Arena
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