City:	London, England
Venue:	Imperial College
Date:	November 2, 1973

Presumed setlist:	Father To Son, Ogre Battle, Son And Daughter, Doing All Right, Keep Yourself Alive, Stone Cold Crazy, Liar, Big Spender, Jailhouse Rock
This show at Imperial College was a key night in Queen's career, chronicled at length with first-hand accounts in George Tremlett's 1976 book about the band. Queen II had been recorded, and it was their first London date after word about their debut album had spread - it a hot and sweaty gig for about 1,500 people in a room that almost certainly should not have contained even half that headcount. This show was the first time they were reviewed (in the November 10 issue of Disc), and very positively, by Rosemary Horide, someone who would give Queen many glowing reviews in the early days (the scan is courtesy of Jane Palm-Gold). Horide described the band's fans as ecstatic, "greeting every number uproariously." Freddie's friend and colleague Alan Mair from Kensington Market, who had been seeing the band since 1970, attended this gig and was surprised to learn that Freddie played piano, realizing the Queen frontman had clearly been modest about his band and his musical abilities (this almost certainly means Doing All Right was performed). Their then-publicist Tony Brainsby's assistant John Bagnall was also on hand, recalling the atmosphere to be similar to a Who or Stones show. Musically they "couldn't be ignored," Mair insisted, performing material that would end up on their second and third albums (which likely means Father To Son and Ogre Battle were included, seeing as they were performed a couple months earlier, as well as Stone Cold Crazy, as it went back to 1970). There were no cover songs until the encore, of which there were three, and the band finally left the stage not due to a lack of demand for another but out of sheer exhaustion. Afterwards backstage Roger Taylor is said to have declared how this show had them finally feeling like they would soon "make it." Simply put, this night is where their success truly begins. They had spent over three years creating their music and image on their own terms and found their audience. This was the real and unadulterated Queen, before music journalists had Freddie Mercury feeling forced into going along with the "dear" and "darling" schtick in exchange for press coverage, and before any industry-influenced commerciality began to seep into their music. Brian May has stated in more recent years that this was Queen's first properly advertised gig. For ages it was assumed that there were two nights, because an October 26 show was advertised in the campus newspaper on October 9. The date was simply moved to a week later, as confirmed by the October 23 newspaper. Well-known photos from this show taken by Mick Rock can be seen in his superb "Killer Queen" book - and there is now a different (and much more affordable) version of this book called Classic Queen. Former Queen bassist Barry Mitchell attended the show as well.

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