Freddie 'would have loved' Classic Rock honour

Brian May dedicated Queen’s Living Legends award at the Classic Rock Roll Of Honour to the “incredible and irrepressible” Freddie Mercury.

The prize was presented by Joe Satriani at the tail-end of tonight’s ceremony at London’s Roundhouse. And the Queen guitarist was quick to mention the late vocalist, who brought a huge round of applause when footage of him performing Bohemian Rhapsody was broadcast on a giant screen at the venue.

Also mentioning drummer Roger Taylor and former Queen bassist John Deacon, May said: “I’m accepting this beautiful award on behalf of John and Roger and on behalf of the incredible and irrepressible Freddie Mercury. I know he would have loved to have been here for this.”

He thanked the rock community for their years of support and hailed many of the other winners. He also praised singer Adam Lambert, who has been performing live with Queen since 2012.

May said: “I love being part of this community. We are fans too. We are here because of the likes of Jimmy Page and the forever awesome Jimi Hendrix. I want to say thank you to the people who voted for us.

“We didn’t look for a singer. Roger and I thought it was over. Then somewhere out of the blue comes this gift from God, Adam Lambert. Because of Adam, we will be able to play next year’s Isle Of Wight Festival and I’m very happy about that.”

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.