Freddie Mercury joins Queen on stage in London

Freddie Mercury reportedly appeared on stage last night with Queen.

Following the news of Tupac Shakur’s “resurrection” at West Coast festival Coachella, where an all-rapping, all-dancing hologram of the deceased rapper performed with former collaborators Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, Queen’s Brian May insisted that his band had been looking for a way to have former singer Mercury, who died in 1991, appear on stage with them – though he specified that unlike Tupac, it would not be a hologram, seemingly due to cost reasons.

The NME claim that last night, at the first show in a new run of Ben Elton-penned Queen musical We Will Rock You, currently celebrating ten years on the stage, Mercury appeared. The show’s climax, a performance of 1975 single ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, featured appearances from May on guitar and Roger Taylor on drums, before a projection of Mercury performed the song’s last line.

May had claimed that he was looking for a “did we actually see Freddie?” effect, and judging from the fan footage below [also via NME], that’s exactly what he got – if there is a projection of Mercury then it’s certainly not proved easy to capture on video, and compared to the reaction that May’s appearance gets from the crowd, there’s not even much of a whoop for Freddie’s line.

Here’s hoping for some more conclusive footage as the day progresses.

Update: FACT reader Luke Lewis claims that it happened, but “was very, very faint, and fleeting. Wouldn’t show up on video”.