City:	London, England
Venue:	Hammersmith Odeon
Date:	December 14, 1973 - early show

Queen and Mott the Hoople played two shows at the Hammersmith Odeon on this day to finish off the tour. Gracing the Hammersmith stage even as an opener was a significant achievement for any band at the time. Freddie's parents attended the early show. His mother, Jer Bulsara, recalls, "My favourite memory of him is that very first concert at Hammersmith Odeon. My boy was showing the best of himself as support to Mott the Hoople. When the show was over, people came over to me and my husband and said it was nice that we supported him. I said simply: 'Well, he is my son.'" Freddie remained close to his parents (especially his mother) and his Zoroastrian roots throughout his life, even if he kept it out of the public eye. A young Gary Numan attended one of these two shows as well. By the end of the tour, Queen were usually getting more encores and bigger cheers than the headlining act. It's uncertain which of the two shows the gig photos are from. Many thanks to Giovanni Pantano for the picture taken outside the venue. The third photo shows Freddie with only a microphone in hand, with a transformation of sorts soon to occur. It was at a gig in the following couple weeks that the bottom of his mic stand fell off, and he decided there and then that he would continue to use it as is. This prop became a permanent part of Mercury's performance craft from here onward, and synonymous with nearly every iconic image of him on stage (the first time Freddie was ever shot with the half-mic stand in tow was a promo photo session by Mick Rock later this month, the date confirmed by Rock in a 1999 Mojo magazine interview, but most of those photos wouldn't be published for decades to come).

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