Queen's Brian May on touring after lockdown: "Will it be safe to have thousands of fans in one place?"

Queen‘s Brian May has said that live artists will have to face major ethical questions when touring commences once more after the coronavirus pandemic.

The guitarist, who recently claimed that meat-eating had played a major role in the outbreak, questioned whether it will be appropriate to have huge numbers of fans congregating together when social distancing measures are relaxed.

May told NME: “We’ve been able to reschedule our concerts, but I wonder whether we’ll be asking the question about whether it’s actually appropriate to be using up lots of the world’s resources to rush around?

“And will it be safe to have thousands of fans in one place and take a risk of some kind, unless we have some way of dealing with an outbreak like this? I’m hoping things will be sorted and we’ll have the antidote for this horrible disease and we can get back to some kind of normality, and playing live.”

His comments come after Queen were forced to push back their 2021 shows with Adam Lambert, which included a ten night stint at London’s O2 Arena.

May added: “Playing live is what we’re best at, but I definitely think we’re going to have to look at the way it’s done and not just assume that coronavirus has gone away so everything is OK forever. It’s probably not. There’s probably going to be more challenges out there.”

Last week, May also slammed the UK government’s response to coronavirus after it was reported that supplies of protective equipment for support workers are running low.

“I’m ashamed that our country was so ill-prepared and put them out there, fighting in the front line without proper protection. It is to our eternal shame that we were not prepared well enough and early enough,” he said.

He was speaking to NME to promote the release of ‘Get Up’, a new track which sees him lending his talents to upcoming London band King’s Daughters.