![\"Brian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Brian-May-Queen-2017-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Credit: Far Out \/ Raph_PH<\/p>\n
Mon 3 August 2026 10:00, UK <\/p>\n
There are several Everest heights in the world of rock that Brian May<\/a> can point to as career-defining.<\/p>\n It could be symbolising the 1970s\u2019 most ornate moment with Queen\u2019s \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019 spectacle, as well as paving the path to MTV with the A Night at the Opera lead single\u2019s iconic promo video. Perhaps the guitarist and astrophysicist\u2019s most immortal moment is gifting sports culture one of the most enduring crowd stompers, lifting the chantalongs heard below ringing around British football terraces for Queen\u2019s anthemic \u2018We Will Rock You\u2019, written by May.<\/p>\n Most, however, would guess for Queen\u2019s 21-minute set at 1985\u2019s Live Aid as towering in May\u2019s estimation, routinely celebrated as the greatest performance of all time and frontman Freddie Mercury\u2019s \u201cAy-yo!\u201d vocal exchanges with the audience ringing around the old Wembley Stadium\u2019s pop-cultural landscape, as well as etched into Queen lore as the band\u2019s finest hour.<\/p>\n Yet, for May, the apex of his career was reached years later, long after their singer had passed away and Queen had released their final LP bow, 1995\u2019s Made in Heaven\u2019s collation of Mercury\u2019s remaining unreleased vocal sessions. It took the regal pomp and ceremony of Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2002 for May to fight through adrenaline and white-knuckle terror for the moment he was most proud of.<\/p>\n Initially, organisers had reached out to May with the suggestion of his performing Britain\u2019s \u2018God Save the Queen\u2019 national anthem while strolling through the state rooms of Buckingham Palace in the vein of Jimi Hendrix. It\u2019s likely the creative team headed by George Martin were thinking of the old Experience guitarist\u2019s scorching rendition of \u2018The Star-Spangled Banner\u2019 at Woodstock Festival<\/a>, swapping all its political critique in favour of a soggy embrace of the imperial state and its royalist bloat.<\/p>\n May\u2019s objections lay not in lacking Hendrix\u2019s subversive commentary but in the simple fact that he thought it\u2019d be \u201cnaff\u201d to try and emulate America\u2019s most famous guitarist. He was right. Instead, he proposed another idea: to play atop the Palace\u2019s rooftops with an orchestral back-up below. Martin loved the idea and arranged such a feat with The Royal Household, May duly taking a corner of the upper battlements without a safety net and grappling with the anxiety-inducing 200 million viewers around the world. Such a weight of responsibility made itself clear to May when preparing for the BBC\u2019s Party at the Palace\u2019s main event.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing could ever quite top that, really, for sheer management of terror,\u201d May reflected to The Guardian in 2023. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to function, you have so much fear \u2013 and it was the whole opening of the Golden Jubilee, so everything depended on it. If it had gone wrong, I would have forever been the guy who messed it up.\u201d<\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n It was touch and go. First, despite appearing as the coda to 1975\u2019s A Night at the Opera, \u2018God Save the Queen\u2019, May and the band never actually performed the song live, only ever using the track as a staple finale soundtrack played out of venue PA\u2019s when rounding off their shows. Then there were the mishaps on the day. While having practised with the orchestra, it turned out that when May was on deck to unleash his solo, the small monitor May was given to see Michael Kamen\u2019s conducting was hard to glean on the tiny screen, plus potentially facing a sound swallow of the orchestra due to May\u2019s mammoth AC-30 amps near his person.<\/p>\n Still, he pulled off the solo, helped with Queen drummer Roger Taylor below on timpani orchestration, and gifted the Party at the Palace its most memorable moment once the feed kicked in. He\u2019d return 20 years later for the Platinum Jubilee, following the Queen\u2019s stilted interaction with Paddington Bear and busting out a blast of \u2018We Will Rock You\u2019 with Adam Lambert on vocals<\/a> and Her Majesty\u2019s Royal Marines on drum duties, along with Taylor.<\/p>\n It couldn\u2019t match the personal satisfaction and conquest of feat as that rooftop show back in 2002, however. \u201cIt was all real, and all live, and I will never ever forget it,\u201d May concluded. \u201cThe adrenaline was incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/themes\/far-out-magazine\/img\/google-discover.svg\")
<\/a> The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter<\/p>\n