After 109 concerts in 20 countries, Queen + Adam Lambert’s marathon Rhapsody Tour wrapped with a Valentine’s Day performance at a packed Tokyo Dome, a venue that also saw major stars like Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift light up its stage in recent weeks.

The final mini leg of The Rhapsody Tour, which hit Nagoya, Osaka, Sapporo and Tokyo this past month, provided fans with an appropriately grandiose send-off from the veteran rockers.

Kicking off in July 2019 in Vancouver, British Columbia, the tour saw the band — original members Brian May and Roger Taylor, along with vocalist Adam Lambert — perform multiple legs at arenas in Europe, North America and elsewhere.

The tour was not without its hiccups along the way. Guitarist May, 76, suffered a heart attack in 2020 and the tour experienced two pandemic-related postponements before its European portion was able to proceed in the summer of 2022.

But with a clean bill of health (May regularly posts cardio training photos and videos to his 3.3 million followers on Instagram while on tour), the band continued performing well-received shows around the world. Canadian music critic Jane Stevenson praised the “emotionally stunning” vocals of the band’s October 2023 performance in Toronto, noting that frontman Adam Lambert was in “exceptional voice” that night.

Fittingly, the tour wrapped up in Japan, where Queen had its first taste of overseas success nearly 50 years ago. Much like the scene awaiting Queen when its flight touched down at Haneda Airport in 1975, the band was greeted by cheering fans as they arrived in Tokyo at the end of January.

For superfan Harumi Arita, who attended all five Japan shows, it was an overdue return.

"Queen was a unique band that broke the conventional wisdom of rock at the time with their complex compositions," said Arita of the band’s initial success in Japan, adding that its folklore-heavy lyrics and early glam-rock aesthetic went well with fan sensibilities in Japan at the time.

This month’s five dome shows were among the largest staged across The Rhapsody Tour, with the biggest of the Japanese venues holding around 55,000 spectators. Putting on such large shows was no mean feat, with production manager Paddy Hocken noting in an email to The Japan Times that the Dome leg used as many as 180 trucks between venues and over 300 local crew.

On opening night at Vantelin Dome Nagoya, seats were filled to the very top row of the 49,000-seat arena; the distance from the stage, however, did nothing to dampen fans’ enthusiasm as the band performed some of their biggest hits.

Closing out the tour at the Tokyo Dome, everyone looked to be in high spirits as the band took the stage, particularly a smiling May, as the rockers tore through hits “Radio Ga Ga,” “Hammer to Fall” and “Fat Bottomed Girls.”

The dome shows also featured the tour’s updated stage presentation, including a sharp new color palette and new scenes of Japanese iconography displayed across towering LED screens.

As per tradition, Japanese fans were treated to an only-in-Japan addition to the setlist: “Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together),” a Japanese-language song written by May in 1976 as a sign of appreciation for the band’s devoted fanbase in the country.

Though the song is normally sung solo by May, Lambert surprised Dome audiences by joining in and singing an updated arrangement in which he made a commendable effort at the Japanese chorus.

Arita said the song was a highlight of her five-night experience and she praised May for speaking Japanese with the audience during concerts.

And so, as the curtain fell on The Rhapsody Tour, it was clear that even decades later, when it comes to Japan, Queen are the champions.