Brian May
Pull a thread
The Bassist Queen Had Before John Deacon: Barry Mitchell and the Nine Months Nobody Talks About
Between June 1970 and March 1971, Queen went through three bass players. Barry Mitchell lasted the longest — around thirteen gigs — and left because he didn’t think the band was going anywhere. He died on 17 August 2026, and the strange part is that he was right.
The lineup that looks inevitable wasn’t
Pull up the back cover of any Queen compilation and you get four faces that seem welded together: Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, John Deacon. Twenty years, no substitutions, no drama in the rhythm section. It reads like a band that was assembled correctly on the first try.
Queen has never made an album with Adam Lambert — and that's why he's still there
Roger Taylor says a return to the stage is “more down to Brian.” Fifteen years in, the thing that keeps Adam Lambert safe is the record Queen never finished.
Asked in June 2026 whether Queen would play live again, Roger Taylor did not say the band was tired. He said something stranger, and more useful:
“Well, it is a big machine to gear up, if you know what I mean.”
How "Seven Nation Army" Became Soccer's Global Anthem — From a Milan Bar to the World Cup Final
On Sunday, 82,500 people at MetLife Stadium will sing a riff written in a Detroit two-piece’s practice space. Here’s the verified chain of how seven notes with no words conquered the terraces, and why Queen engineered the blueprint thirty years earlier.
The final has no rock band on the marquee. Listen anyway.
This Sunday, July 19, Argentina and Spain meet at MetLife Stadium in the 2026 World Cup final, the first final in World Cup history with a halftime show. The bill, per Global Citizen, is Madonna, Shakira and BTS co-headlining, with Burna Boy, Justin Bieber, Gustavo Dudamel, and the PS22 Chorus featuring Coldplay, all curated by Chris Martin. The closest thing to a rock band on that stage is a Coldplay cameo backing a school choir.