Classic Rock
Brian May has said in an interview with “The Times” that he decided eighteen months ago not to tour again, and that the Queen immersive show he had sketched out for the Sphere in Las Vegas is on hold because it cannot be built without artificial intelligence.
“I made a decision 18 months ago that I didn’t want to tour again,” he said. “A close family friend died when we were in the States, so I said to my tour manager, ‘I’ll just nip home for a few days and come back.’ She looked me in the eyes and said, ‘You know you can’t do that.’ I love to play, I love to travel, but the trade-off is sacrificing your freedom. I have a wife [the actress Anita Dobson], grandchildren and a lot of astrophysics I want to do, so I’m thinking maybe 50 years is enough.”
On the Sphere project: “Last year I went to the Sphere, my juices started flowing and I sketched out a whole Queen show. I think an immersive experience is still on the cards and it could conquer time and space, but currently you can’t make it without AI and I have serious misgivings about that.” He had given Absolute Radio a similar account, citing the Eagles.
“Data centres are a massive evil and have to be fought,” he added. “My message to Andy Burnham is clear: stop it now before it’s too late. It’s trashing our future. We all like AI. It helps us write emails. It’s even saved a few lives. But the harm it is bringing to the world is immense.” Burnham is the mayor of Greater Manchester.
Roger Taylor, who released a solo album on 18 September — “Violence Insane In A Beautiful World” — had his own line on it: “We do want to do something fairly revolutionary.”
In August May had posted on Instagram the image Meta’s AI returned when he asked it to show him the cover of “The Game”.
Text by Enric Vilaplana