Freddie Mercury reportedly appeared on stage last night with Queen.

Following the news of Tupac Shakur’s “resurrection” at West Coast festival Coachella, where an all-rapping, all-dancing hologram of the deceased rapper performed with former collaborators Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, Queen’s Brian May insisted that his band had been looking for a way to have former singer Mercury, who died in 1991, appear on stage with them – though he specified that unlike Tupac, it would not be a hologram, seemingly due to cost reasons.

The NME claim that last night, at the first show in a new run of Ben Elton-penned Queen musical We Will Rock You, currently celebrating ten years on the stage, Mercury appeared. The show’s climax, a performance of 1975 single ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, featured appearances from May on guitar and Roger Taylor on drums, before a projection of Mercury performed the song’s last line.

May had claimed that he was looking for a “did we actually see Freddie?” effect, and judging from the fan footage below [also via NME], that’s exactly what he got – if there is a projection of Mercury then it’s certainly not proved easy to capture on video, and compared to the reaction that May’s appearance gets from the crowd, there’s not even much of a whoop for Freddie’s line.

Here’s hoping for some more conclusive footage as the day progresses.

Update: FACT reader Luke Lewis claims that it happened, but “was very, very faint, and fleeting. Wouldn’t show up on video”.