Last year, Sir Brian May spent his 77th birthday performing at one of Andrea Bocelli’s annual Teatro del Silenzio concerts in Tuscany.
And now the Queen guitarist has returned this year for a “once-in-a-lifetime” duet.
The Italian maestro teased ahead of the concert: “On July 26, a friend, an astrophysicist, a brilliant composer, and Queen’s guitar player returns: rock legend Brian May, welcome to Lajatico!To the delight of fans around the world (and mine as well) we will properly celebrate a special guest who has shaped the history of music. Last year, we celebrated his birthday behind the scenes; this year, we’ll honour his extraordinary career on stage, in a once-in-a-lifetime chance to relive his masterpieces. He returns to Lajatico with his iconic guitar, exactly the one he built with his father as a young boy, as he once told me. The same guitar that helped define sixty years of great music, and that I had the privilege of hearing during rehearsals as I paid tribute with one of Queen’s immortal songs: Who Wants to Live Forever.”
Now their emotional duet of Too Much Love Will Kill You from Saturday night has been shared by Sir Brian, who called Bocelli an “amazing chap”.
The Queen legend penned the track during a difficult time in his life and shared in a previous interview: “I was just pouring out all these words because I felt like I was trapped. I was in a place that I could never, ever get out of. The things that I struggle with are still there. Too Much Love Will Kill You is a chronicle of what’s actually buried deepest inside me. Every word on it, as I listen to it now, every word counts for me. Every word I would still stand by. It’s exactly how I am inside. I say ‘am’ in the present tense because I’ve come to the realisation that I haven’t changed that much. It’s the one opportunity I had in my life to tell it as I saw it. In a way, it’s the most important song I ever wrote because it does sum up life’s journey for me.”
Before performing the song at the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert and releasing it as a solo single, Sir Brian had recorded Too Much Love Will Kill You with the Queen singer before his death. The bigger version made for the band was put down in 1989, a couple of years before Freddie died and ended up on the band’s final album, 1995’s Made in Heaven.