Brian May reveals father’s curious role in Queen’s 1974 tour of Europe
Sir Brian May has taken to Instagram to reveal the special role his father played in the first Queen tour of Europe.
The original Queen guitarist posted a photo depicting his father’s illustration. Recently, May was celebrated at the Polar Music Prize ceremony in Stockholm, where he and bandmate Roger Taylor received the 2025 Polar Music Prize. Before that ceremony, May reminisced about his dad’s drawings.
The illustration, from 1974, depicts all the dates of Queen’s first European tour, which ran from 22nd November to 14th December. Countries depicted on the iconic map include Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Spain, as well as several dates in the United Kingdom. The drawing even tracks their direction of travel in a spot of red ink.
The musician captioned his post, “My Dad’s supportive handiwork for our first Queen tour of Europe … 1974 !!! As honoured in Stockholm last night. Love to all — Bri.” The post has since garnered over 50,000 likes.
Though the post reminisces kindly about 1974, the year had some challenges for the iconic band. Most notably, it marked the year that they travelled to Australia for the Sunbury Festival in Victoria. Unfortunately, they turned up to their set relatively late, and were soon booed off the stage by an unforgiving and notoriously harsh crowd.
May recently joined pop-star Benson Boone on stage during Boone’s Coachella set. Together, they performed an electric rendition of the classic Queen track ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ during his set on April 11th, surprising the large crowd.
Following the performance, which marked one of May’s few public appearances since suffering a minor stroke last year, the guitarist took to Instagram to share his elation, writing, “I’m still reeling from last night at Coachella. Thanks to all of you folks who made it feel so special — you know who you are !!!!”
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