A veteran guitarist says his iconic rock band won’t be playing any shows in the United States any time soon.
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Queen’s Brian May hasn’t closed the door on future Queen concerts (their last was in 2024), but for now, it seems the show won’t go on in the U.S.
“America is a dangerous place at the moment, so you have to take that into account,” the 78-year-old guitarist recently told The Daily Mail. “It’s very sad because I feel like Queen grew up in America, and we love it, but it’s not what it was. Everyone is thinking twice about going there at the moment.”
However, in September, May revealed to Rolling Stone that Queen was in talks about a potential residency at the futuristic Sphere in Las Vegas.
Although May didn’t cite specific examples of dangers in America that may have caused the classic rock band to reconsider, recent ICE raids and violent clashes with protesters have made global headlines.
Queen Guitarist Brian May Also Says His Beloved Rock Band Won’t Play Another High-Profile Festival
May also stated that Queen would never perform at England’s Glastonbury Festival, citing concerns over the organizers’ stance on animal rights.
“I wouldn’t do Glastonbury next year because of the politics of the people who run it, unless that changes, I won’t do it,” May explained. “They like killing badgers, and they think it’s for sport, and that’s something I cannot support because we’ve been trying to save these badgers for years, and they are still being killed for years, so that’s the reason we’re missing out on it.”
The guitarist is referring to badger culling, a practice in the UK intended to prevent the spread of disease among cattle. In 2019, Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis said May is “a danger to farming, and he doesn’t care about the badgers. He doesn’t know anything about it at all.”