‘It isn’t the same; I’m not Freddie’: Adam Lambert is facing Queen fans’ doubts head on

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Despite having been together off and on for some five years, Queen and Adam Lambert still must deal every night with the specter of Freddie Mercury — both on stage, as they perform the band’s greatest hits, but also among those who think Queen’s late frontman is simply irreplaceable.

Lambert, whose world tour with Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor is continuing in Australia, is facing those kind of questions head on.

“Some critics might say, it’s not the same and he’s not Freddie,” Lambert tells Today: Entertainment in Australia. “Those are very true things. It isn’t the same; I’m not Freddie. I’m aware of that, but I think these two amazing musicians still want to get on stage and entertain people. I think that they have that right. And these songs need to be brought to live on stage by the originators.”

This, of course, isn’t the first time that Queen has appeared with another frontman since Mercury’s untimely early-1990s death from AIDS-related illnesses. But it’s becoming their longest-tenured association with another singer. And that’s something May says he and Taylor have taken very seriously.

“In our minds, that was kind of the litmus test the whole time — would Freddie like this?” May says. “And we don’t have any doubt whatsoever that Freddie would love it. He would be a little jealous, I think.”

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