Watch members of Ghost and Opeth perform Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ for Swedish royalty at Polar Music Prize 

Members of Ghost and Opeth have joined forces to cover a classic track by Queen at the 2025 Polar Music Prize. Check out footage below.

• READ MORE: Tobias Forge on new material and the future of Ghost: “If fans need the lore to like the band, that element will be over quite soon”

The event took place in Stockholm, Sweden last night (May 17), and saw honours given to British rock band Queen, American jazz legend Herbie Hancock and Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan.

There were also a number of live performances on the night, predominantly from Swedish artists – including frontman of Ghost, Tobias Forge, and guitarist of prog metal band Opeth, Fredrik Åkesson. For the event, which had the king and queen of Sweden in attendance, they broke out a cover of the Queen classic track ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ alongside the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir.

They weren’t the only performers to honour Queen on the night either. Elsewhere at the ceremony Queen collaborator Adam Lambert – who was one of the only performers who was not from Sweden – sang ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ and ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’, while pop singer Miriam Bryant covered ‘The Show Must Go On’ and Swedish Idol winner Erik Grönwall sang ‘Stone Cold Crazy’.

“What a great honour to perform ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ with Ghost at the Polar Music Prize In front of Queen and the King and Queen!!!” said Åkesson in an Instagram post after the event. “I was quite nervous but very glad it went well. Big thanks to Stefan Ohlsson and band and the amazing Eric Ericsons Kammarkör and everyone working at the Polar Music Prize.”

As for Queen, guitarist Brian May said on receiving the Polar Music Prize: “In this special moment, I contemplate how that younger Brian May in 1974 would have felt if he knew that we would be living this kind of dream 50 years in the future.” He also described the audiences in Sweden as some of the most loyal Queen fans.

Drummer Roger Taylor continued: “When we started our band…we had ambitions, but never dreamed of the journey that was to follow. We were fortunate in the fact that our four wildly different personalities came together to achieve a wonderful chemistry.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Fredrik Åkesson (@fredrik_akesson_official)

“The Polar Music Prize is exceptional in the fact that unlike other awards it recognises the entirety of an artist’s career. What an honour to be included in the glittering cavalcade of previous laureates. True Olympian company indeed. We are so proud to be the recipients of this incredibly prestigious award,” he added.

As for performers celebrating the other recipients, Esperanza Spalding and Robert Glasper covered Hancock’s ‘Trust Me’ and ‘Watermelon Man’, and pianist Bertrand Chamayou performed ‘Stars’ and ‘Trois Beaux Oiseaux De Paradis’ in celebration of Hannigan.

For Tobias Forge, the performance comes shortly after Ghost shared their latest album ‘Skeletá’, and opened up to NME about how there may be a potential change on the way for the Ghost lore.  “I think that there might be an end to the storytelling because it’s not productive to have this endless soap opera. If fans need the lore in order to like the band, then that element will probably be over quite soon,” he revealed.

In that same interview, the frontman also said Ghost are “living proof” that the concept that “rock is dead” is not true, revealed the impact that Black Sabbath had on the band, and hinted that he may be thinking about a career in film.

‘Skeletá’ was given a four-star from NME – which described it as seeing the band “broaden their musical scope and explore a tapestry of human emotion”.

“While it may not boast the same instant hooks of some earlier albums, the latest offering does instead offer something more substantial,” it read. “Through a rich exploration of genres and a new level of emotional depth, it becomes clear that ‘Skeletá’ was made with a new vision in mind, and comes as the promising start of a new Ghost chapter.”

The post Watch members of Ghost and Opeth perform Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ for Swedish royalty at Polar Music Prize  appeared first on NME.