Watch: QUEEN + ADAM LAMBERT Kick Off Fall 2023 Tour In Baltimore

QUEEN + ADAM LAMBERT kicked off the 2023 leg of their "Rhapsody" tour last night (Wednesday, October 4) at the CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore, Maryland.

Guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and singer Adam Lambert opened the concert with "Radio Ga Ga" and ran through a total of 25 songs, including the first performance of "Stone Cold Crazy" since 2018 and a rendition of "Is This the World We Created...?", which was played for the first time with Lambert.

The setlist was as follows:

Act 1

01. Machines (Or Back To Humans) / Radio Ga Ga
02. Hammer To Fall
03. Stone Cold Crazy
04. Another One Bites The Dust

Act 2

05. I'm In Love With My Car
06. Bicycle Race
07. Fat Bottomed Girls
08. I Want It All

Act 3

09. A Kind Of Magic
10. Killer Queen
11. Don't Stop Me Now
12. Somebody To Love

Act 4 - B-stage

13. Love Of My Life
14. '39
15. Drum Solo
16. Under Pressure
17. Tie Your Mother Down
18. Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Act 5

19. I Want To Break Free
20. Who Wants To Live Forever
21. Guitar Solo
22. Is This The World We Created...?
23. The Show Must Go On
24. Bohemian Rhapsody

Encore:

25. We Will Rock You
26. Radio Ga Ga (Reprise)
27. We Are The Champions

Fan-filmed video of the entire concert can be seen below.

The fall leg of the "Rhapsody" tour will end on November 12 at the BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.

This past March, May spoke to SiriusXM's Classic Rewind about the evolution of QUEEN's live performance since he and Taylor first shared the stage together with Lambert more than a decade ago. He said: "I think our chemistry is better than it ever was. I mean, Roger and I go back hundreds of years, as you probably know. But with Adam, I mean, it was good from the beginning, but it's now amazing. We now have a real empathy on stage, a real kind of understanding. There's a connection. And you probably know, we don't have any clicks or backing tracks or anything, so we're completely free and we can feel what each other wants to do. So every night, it'll go a slightly different way. And I love that — the danger of that is brilliant. And we all feel more confident, I think. And I think as you get older, you get more forgiving of yourself. You don't regard things as mistakes. You regard everything as an opportunity. You get more forgiving of your younger self as well. You think, 'Okay, I was only young.' But it's a different feeling.

"I just think it's a privilege to be out there and to be able to do that and to get that incredible response from the audience," Brian added. "The QUEEN thing has been something amazing for all of us, and it's a real privilege to have that."

After SiriusXM's Mark Goodman noted that QUEEN managed to not only continue after the passing of Mercury, who died in 1991 of complications from to AIDS, but thrive following the arrival of Lambert, the guitarist said: "It's amazing that we didn't look for him. I always think that. We didn't advertise; we didn't audition. He just turned up out of the blue, out of heaven, and he had everything that we needed, plus more. And it is truly incredible."

Lambert, May and Taylor first shared the stage during "American Idol" in May 2009 for a performance of "We Are The Champions". They teamed up again in 2011 at the MTV European Music Awards in Belfast, Ireland for an electrifying eight-minute finale of "The Show Must Go On", "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions" and in the summer of 2012, Lambert performed a series of shows with QUEEN across Europe as well as dates in Russia, Ukraine and Poland. They have since completed a number of tours and performed at some of the biggest festivals in the world.

In May 2019, Lambert said that he wasn't convinced it was the right move for him to record new music with QUEEN. Speaking to Hunger, he said: "People always ask if we want to record together, and I'm not sure it makes total sense, because it wouldn't really be QUEEN, because, to me, QUEEN is Freddie. My favorite thing is collaborating and putting these concerts together and creating on stage — it's super fulfilling and exciting. To present these ideas to these two gentlemen — especially when they like the idea."

May previously described Lambert as the only singer the band had found capable of filling Mercury's shoes. "Adam is the first person we've encountered who can do all the QUEEN catalog without blinking," said May. "He is a gift from God." Taylor echoed the guitarist's sentiments, adding: "[Adam's] incredibly musical, and we certainly take anything he says quite seriously."

Lambert, for his part, downplayed the Mercury comparisons, saying: "There's never going to be another, and I'm not replacing him. That's not what I'm doing. I'm trying to keep the memory alive, and remind people how amazing he was, without imitating him. I'm trying to share with the audience how much he inspired me."

In 2004, QUEEN recruited BAD COMPANY singer Paul Rodgers, with whom they completed two world tours and released an album, "The Cosmos Rocks", in 2008. They amicably parted ways a year later when Rodgers returned to BAD COMPANY. Since 2011, QUEEN has been fronted by Lambert.