It's not Queen. They're calling themselves 'Queen + Paul Rodgers' ... have a look at their live cd & dvd ('Return Of The Champions'), website (
www.queenpluspaulrodgers.com), ect.
Incidentally, that cd and dvd is an awesome show. It's not Queen (as others have said and will continue to say, Queen is not Queen without Freddie, and to a lesser extent John Deacon), but Freddie is included in the show via video screen. He starts Bohemian Rhapsody, the video screen does the operatic part (as all Queen shows have done since 1975 when BoRhap was released, except obviously they just used the recording played over the PA at this bit without any video screens), then Paul Rodgers comes in, does the rockin' part, then finishes the song in a duet with Freddie on the video screen.
There are a
lot of old-school Queen fans who are viciously against this project (again, they state that nothing labelled 'Queen' should be called 'Queen' without Freddie and John), and on the official Queen forum, they quite openly vent their spleens to whoever will read about just about anything new.
For those who are interested, the new album will be called something like 'Rocks The Cosmos', and contain all new songs (suprisingly for me, none will feature Freddie vocals from tracks recorded but never finished or released), and for the first time
ever on a Queen album, they will be doing a cover version. There's been no hints thus far of what song that may be. Prior to this album, no song has featured on any Queen album (bar a couple of live albums) that was written by anyone outside of the four members of the group. But I suppose it's not 'Queen' though, this one, is it?!
Album gets released September 1st 2008 (in the UK anyway). I can't wait, although I am a tad hesitent on getting my hopes up. They released a single called 'Say It's Not True' (in aid of the Nelson Mandela charity '46664') which is from this new album, is good, but not something a non-Queen fan would go for. It feels kinda rushed to me.
I am bitterly disappointed that Australia was left off the tour schedule. There is a group called Aussie Queens who worked tirelessly for about 2 years to try and get them to come to Australia, accumulating signatures for a petition, ect. The couple of people who run the group invested in excess of $5,000 of their own money to put it all together, and for what? Nothing it seems. I do believe that if sales are healthy enough, and they sell enough tickets on their European tour later this year, they may extend their tour to have a third leg (the 2nd being South and probably North America / Canada), which could include Japan, Australia, New Zealand, ect.
Personally, I doubt it though. I believe they'll do legs 1 and 2, but that'll be it ... possibly forever.
