John Deacon’s final Queen performance: ‘Severely traumatised by losing Freddie Mercury’

Roger Taylor shared: “And that was John’s last ever performance, and I could tell he wasn’t happy because he was sort of chain-smoking and very, very nervous and had been severely traumatised by losing Freddie.”

Brian added: “Deacy, our dear friend John, I think he didn’t arrive at the same places as we did. And John is there, but John is really so desperately uncomfortable with the whole thing.  You can see him kind of his whole body is sort of reacting against it. And at the end of it, he says, ‘I can never do this again. I can’t do this.’ And it was true, that’s the last time he ever played with us, John, in public.”

Since retiring, Deacon chose not the attend Queen’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. And while Brian and Roger have kept the band alive with Paul Rodgers and Adam Lambert as singers for live tours, the bassist is still very much a present business partner even though they haven’t seen him in almost 20 years.

Speaking exclusively with Express.co.uk, Brian told us how this relationship works 25 years on from Deacon’s retirement.

source: express.co.uk