Brian May's guitar tech of two decades Pete Malandrone has recounted a "horrible" accident suffered by his boss when he fell into a an open slot on stage which housed a piano when Queen were touring with former Free and Bad Company frontman Paul Rogers. The floor had been moved away so that the piano could be elevated onto the stage when Brian took a tumble.

"He (Brian) went in, luckily, went in on his back, and he landed on half on the piano and half on, on Paul's tech Marcus," Pete recalled speaking on The Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins podcast last year. "And it was horrible, because it looked horrendous. But we got him out and it was dark on the stage. He just didn't see the hole. We got him out, and the guitar was really badly out of tune and he was obviously pretty shaken," he said.

"I said, Do you want to stop? Do you want to see a doctor? What do you want to do? And he said: 'No, I'll be fine'.

But we had (to get) a paramedic up there, just in case there was stuff (wrong wth him).

And it was quite traumatic to see, because he's not only my boss, he's my mate as well. And it's horrible to see your mate in a situation like that. And it just wasn't funny," he said.

Brian May and Queen drummer Roger Taylor Queen toured with Paul Rogers for five from 2004 to 2009. Since 2011 they have toured with American Idol alum Adam Lambert.

Paul also recalled the incident in a 2014 interview with Ultimate Classic Rock explaining just how precarious it could have been for Brian.

“(We) would have the piano under the stage, and it would be lifted through smoke on a hydraulic up to stage level...They’d ask you to keep your elbows and arms in, because the hydraulic will snap them off if you’re not careful,” he said.

“As it’s coming up, I start to play for atmosphere. I’m starting to play and all of a sudden I look up, and there’s a guitarist on the end of the piano as we were rising up. It’s Brian...so there he was and they had to hit an emergency stop. Because we couldn’t go up — it would trim your knees off if you were hanging over the edge of it.”

He continued explaining the roadies jumped down to come to Brian's aid while he debated whether or not to continue playing, conceding that he did.

“It wasn’t funny at the time — it was scary, actually,” he recalled.