Freddie Mercury’s Debut Performance with Pre-Queen Band

In 1969, 22-year-old Freddie Bulsara was still a few years away from becoming Freddie Mercury, the iconic frontman of Queen. But even then, he was well on his way to stardom.

After graduating from London’s Ealing Art College, Mercury held various jobs. At one point, he worked as a luggage handler at Heathrow Airport. Another time, he sold clothes and scarves in Kensington Market alongside his future bandmate Roger Taylor.

“I used to run it with this bloke, Freddie, who I knew because he regularly came to see Smile, the band Brian [May] and I were in at the time,” Taylor shared with Reader’s Digest in 2020. “Back then, I didn’t really know him as a singer—he was just my mate. My crazy mate! If there was fun to be had, Freddie and I were usually involved.”

But Mercury had bigger dreams beyond the market stalls. On August 13, 1969, he met Ibex, a band from Liverpool that blended progressive and heavy blues sounds. Ibex had only formed a few months earlier in May. The band consisted of Mike Bersin on guitar, John Taylor on bass, and Mick Smith on drums. They were open to the idea of adding a new singer.

Just 10 days after meeting them, Mercury learned the band’s setlist, added some of his own ideas, and traveled to Bolton, Lancashire for his debut performance with Ibex.

“As a three-piece, we’d thought it was sufficient to play fairly basic music and not worry too much about stagecraft. Freddie was much better at putting on a show and entertaining people,” Bersin later recounted to Queen historian John S. Stuart. “That was pretty radical for us. I thought that’s what the liquid light show was for, you know. We make the music and the audience can watch the pretty-colored bubbles behind us. But Freddie was different. He was always a star. People used to pull his leg about it when he had no money, one pair of trousers, one T-shirt and one pair of boots. He’d look after them all really well and people would say, ‘Here comes Freddie, the star.'”

Mercury’s musical talent greatly contributed to the band’s dynamic. “He was trained on the piano, and he could write on the black notes,” Bersin explained. “He said, ‘We’re never going to get anywhere playing all this three-chord blues crap, we’ll have to write some songs.’ A couple of things came out of it, but they’ve all vanished now.”

Ibex played their third and final show on September 9 in Liverpool. Shortly after, Mercury moved on to another band, Sour Milk Sea, named after the George Harrison song. However, this group also disbanded within a few months. Eventually, Mercury joined Taylor and May in Smile, which later evolved into Queen.

“Freddie knew where he wanted to go,” Bersin said. “That’s why he was an international star. It wasn’t an accident. It happened because that’s what he wanted to be from the moment I first met him. He was a man with a goal and a drive.”

Listen to Freddie Mercury Sing With Ibex in 1969

Mercury’s early experiences and relentless ambition set the stage for his eventual rise to fame with Queen, a band renowned for its unique blend of individuality and ground-breaking music.

A thread runs through all of Queen’s work: a hard-won sense of individuality. Queen was a band like no other.

Source: Reader’s Digest, Queen historian John S. Stuart