Queen‘s Brian May has reunited with Benson Boone to perform two songs at the latter’s recent London gig – check out footage of their performance below.
Last night (November 4), Boone played the second of three massive shows at the O2 in London. To close out the show, Boone brought out a very special guest for his two-track encore: legendary Queen guitarist Brian May.
The encore consisted of a cover of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, followed by the Boone hit ‘Beautiful Things’. Boone’s rendition of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ kicked off with the singer-songwriter on the piano before May surprised the audience by appearing onstage to raucous cheers to rip through his iconic solo.
After wrapping up ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, Boone praised the audience, saying: “Now that is how a crowd should sound when they see Brian May!” The comment is a dig at the Coachella crowd, who gave May a lukewarm welcome when he appeared during Boone’s set as a special guest earlier this year.
The pair later continued on with ‘Beautiful Things’, complete with another soaring solo from Brian May. Watch the two performances above.
Following the show’s end, Boone uploaded a video on TikTok, in which he and May are stood back to back to recreate the viral ‘What’s Up’ and ‘Beez In The Trap’ mash-up trend. Boone mouths along to 4 Non Blonde’s ‘What’s Up’, while May raps along to Nicki Minaj’s verse on ‘Beez In The Trap’. The clip, captioned ‘Guess who’s back’, can be seen below.
@bensonboone guess who’s back
May and Boone first linked up at Coachella earlier this year, but the guitarist’s appearance fell flat with the younger crowd. Following the performance, Boone took shots at the crowd, joking in a video on TikTok: “Me trying to get the crowd at Coachella to understand what an absolute legend Brian May is and the cultural impact he has on music and THE WORLD.”
During the second weekend of Coachella, Boone substituted May’s performance with a cardboard cutout of the guitarist.
As for Queen, the band were named the UK’s most-played rock act of the 21st century back in October. The month before that, May revealed that Queen have worked on new music with Adam Lambert, though they’re not sure it will go anywhere. “Not many people know, but Adam and we have been in the studio trying things. Nothing really materialised so far. Some things are meant to be and some things are not.”
He then added that the band have considered bringing their live show to The Sphere in Las Vegas. “ I’m very keen on the Sphere. It’s got my mind working,” he said.