Is This The Real Life? (12 page)

Before long, May, Taylor and Staffell began demonstrating a couple of Smile songs, with a little help from their friend. ‘They had a chum with them,’ says Testi. ‘And that was Freddie. He knew all the words to the Smile songs and even started singing the harmonies. From that moment, it was obvious to us he wanted to be in that band. But Smile didn’t need a frontman. Ibex did.’

Like Smile, Ibex were solely about the music. Their idols were Cream, Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After, and, like those idols, they were predisposed towards, as ‘Tupp’ Taylor, admits, ‘soloing endlessly until everybody fucked off to the bar’. On at least one occasion, ‘Miffer’ Smith’s drum solo was lengthy enough for the spikes on his floor tom to get wedged into the gaps between the stage boards, causing the drum to disappear lower and lower into the stage with each paradiddle.

Image-wise, Ibex had the requisite long hair, with Mike Bersin sporting a capacious afro, but beyond that, it was all flared jeans and trench coats. While ‘Tupp’ Taylor was confident enough to sing some lead vocals and handle the between-song announcements, neither him nor Bersin were comfortable frontmen. It didn’t take long for Freddie to make his move. Taylor thinks they asked him to join in a meeting at the Kensington; Mike Bersin remembers an audition in somebody’s basement flat, while ‘Miffer’ recalled an audition at Imperial College. ‘One thing we learned later was that Freddie was very good at getting his own way,’ says Bersin. ‘He was very sure of himself, and he wanted to sing with us.’ The deal was done.

The Smile/Ibex contingent spent July and August drifting between the flats surrounding the Kensington Tavern. David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, timed perfectly to coincide with Neil Armstrong’s historic walk, gave the struggling songwriter a hit single. Back on earth, The Rolling Stones played a free concert in Hyde Park as a memorial to ex-guitarist Brian Jones, who’d been found dead in his swimming pool. At Sinclair Road, the soundtrack included the inevitable Jimi Hendrix LPs, The Who’s ‘Tommy’ (‘Tupp’ Taylor: ‘We wore that one out’) and the Island Records sampler ‘All Join Hands’ with its heavy roll call of honour: Free, Spooky Tooth, Jethro Tull …

Before long, the presence of mysterious hairy males at the McConnell sisters’ flat came to the attention of the landlords. ‘So we all shipped over to Patoumb Gardens,’ explains Ken Testi. Here, three beds were shoved together to accommodate more bodies. ‘There was nothing else going on,’ laughs Testi. ‘They were good Catholic girls, all totally respectable. But it was only one stop short
of a squat … I think “Miffer” had to sleep in the bath.’

After leaving Ealing, Chris Smith had spent a couple of months in the United States. He returned to the flat he shared at Addison Gardens and was shocked by what he found. ‘There were loads of people I didn’t know having a party,’ he laughs. ‘Someone came up to me and said, “Who are you?” I said, “I live here.”’ Among the revellers was ‘Miffer’. The Ibex drummer with the Dickensian chinlength sideburns had a couple of years on his teenage bandmates and didn’t share their naivety. He’d been coaxed into giving up his job as a milkman in Widnes to try and make it as a rock star in London. As ‘Tupp’ Taylor puts it, ‘“Miffer” always seemed more worldly than the rest of us.’ Having spent weeks surrounded by Smile’s posse of art students, would-be physicists and part-qualified dentists, ‘Miffer’ sidled up to Chris and asked wearily, ‘So … how many GCEs have you got, then?’

The relationship between ‘Miffer’ and Freddie encapsulated the differences between Ibex and their new lead singer. ‘We were all a bit rough and ready,’ admits Ken Testi. ‘“Miffer” especially.’ Fred, in contrast, was like an immaculately groomed dandy alien. The banter was soon flying between this curious creature and the Scouse milkman-turned-drummer. ‘They took the piss out of each other all the time,’ explains Testi. Later, Fred presented ‘Miffer’ with a sketch he’d drawn of the drummer, signed ‘Ponce’.

Fred’s punctiliousness was another talking point among the Liverpudlians. ‘Freddie had no money, just like the rest of us,’ recalls Bersin. ‘So he had one outfit: he always wore this T-shirt with a wide belt and trousers, and before crashing out for the night he would take them off and fold them ever so neatly so they’d be perfect for the morning. At the time, we thought it was a southern thing, an evidence of the cultural divide: OK, men in the north don’t do that but men in the south do. In a way, Freddie was a star before he was a star.’

Ibex would soon discover just how much of a star Freddie thought he was. Although Ken Testi had struggled to secure any gigs in the capital, Ibex already had two prior bookings at Bolton’s Octagon Theatre on 23 August and an open-air festival in the town’s Queen’s Park the day after. To make the trip, Ken Testi
acquired a Luton transit van from Fred’s friend, 1984’s ex-drummer Richard Thompson. ‘Richard was working for a company at Heathrow airport and it was the works van,’ admits Testi.

‘It was a yellow van for the company I worked for, Arbuckle Smith & Co,’ remembers Thompson. ‘I used to love watching bands, so we’d pile twenty people into the back and drive everywhere – gigs, parties. You could get away with doing that sort of thing in the sixties and seventies.’ The van was soon filled with Ibex, their equipment and an assortment of mates, girlfriends and casual roadies, including Paul Humberstone. On a whim, Paul brought a camera, preserving the touring party for prosperity. In one of his photos the ramshackle group are lined up alongside the Arbuckle Smith & Co van. By then, Richard Thompson had made the transition from 1984’s modish drummer to a fully-fledged hippy, with shoulder-length hair, Jesus beard and sandals. Backing up Mike Bersin’s recollection, Freddie looks immaculate, his three-button, long-sleeved T-shirt as spotlessly white as his shoes.

The trip began after midnight, when Ken collected ‘Tupp’ Taylor after his shift at a record shop in Piccadilly. But the trek up north took far less time than anticipated. ‘I was a little overcautious,’ says Testi. ‘We arrived at about 6 a.m., and we couldn’t get into the theatre until ten. I still have this one particular memory. I pulled up outside the Octagon on the cobbles, and I’m just sat there looking in the van mirror. I hear the roller shutter go up at the back and I can see various occupants climbing out …’

Among the first on the cobbles was Fred. Testi watched as the new singer fussed over his appearance: ‘He checked his hair, fluffed the fur on the collar of his jacket, and then began checking the creases on his trousers.’ Before long, though, Ken became aware of a noise in the background. ‘There was this clattering sound that just kept building, getting louder and louder …’ All of a sudden, the source of the noise became apparent: ‘The night shift had just ended.’ The sound was the clatter of workers’ clogs on the cobbles as they made their way home. ‘The context was immaculate,’ laughs Testi. ‘All these guys covered in dirt walking past as Freddie Mercury stands there in his fur-collared jacket fixing his hair.’

The Octagon Theatre gig was a Saturday lunchtime affair and
part of the venue’s regular ‘Bluesology sessions’. At lunchtime, Ibex played their debut gig with the future Freddie Mercury. ‘Tupp’ Taylor thinks they opened their set with, at Freddie’s suggestion, a cover of ‘Jailhouse Rock’. If so, then it came with a difference. ‘Pat McConnell reminded me recently that Freddie had his back to the audience for half of the first number,’ recalls Ken Testi. ‘It was only thinking back that we realised this was his first time onstage with a band. He’d done bits at school, but nothing since.’ Fred’s opening gambit to Ibex had been: ‘I’m a singer but I haven’t got a band.’ ‘Looking back, it was a brilliant strategy,’ Testi says. ‘It was a great stroke. By the end of the first number, the shyness had gone and he was performing well.’

Brian May had been unable to make the Friday night trip to Bolton, but wanted to catch the Sunday show. The band and entourage were planning to spend Saturday night twenty-five miles away in Ibex’s native Liverpool. Ken Testi had arranged to collect May from Lime Street station, and decided to park the van on a ramp leading up to the station platform. ‘I figured we’d be good for ten minutes or so, but then this very senior policeman hoved into view and walked up to the driver’s window. It was then I realised we were in what you might call a borrowed van and that I could be hung, drawn and quartered for having a load of people in the back.’

Having seen the agents’ address on the side of the vehicle, the officer presumed that Testi was on company business, and asked if he was waiting for the train from London. ‘I said we were, so this policeman said, “Righto, well, you shouldn’t really park here. I’ll open the gates for you so you can back it up on to the platform.”’ Without further ado, a group of station porters arrived and opened the gates, while Ken reversed the van onto the platform. ‘When Brian got off the train he could not believe his eyes. To his credit, he realised what was going on straight away.’ With the guitarist safely stashed, Testi made a swift getaway.

The evening ended with most of the group billeted at the McConnell sisters’ family home in St Helens. It was at the McConnells that Brian dozed off in an armchair close to a gas fire. ‘Despite his height, Brian was wearing platforms,’ smiles Ken Testi. At some point in the evening, the family could smell burning
rubber. ‘Poor Brian was unaware of the heat until one of his soles dropped off. He was limping around with half a shoe for the rest of the weekend.’

Fred’s second gig with Ibex was due to take place the following afternoon at Queen’s Park. The ‘Bluesology Pop-In’ was an open-air event. That day, the bill also showcased such forgotten local acts as Gum Boot Smith and acid-folk band Spyrogyra. The stage was set up on the bandstand in the middle of the park, and was three times as big as the stage at the Octagon. ‘When Fred stepped on that stage, he was all action,’ confirms ‘Tupp’ Taylor. ‘I thought, “Fuck, yes! This is what we want.”’ Mike Bersin adds, ‘I was used to playing guitar solos with my eyes shut, and now there’s a guy on his knees in front holding the mic up to me. Many of the moves Fred later did in Queen, he first did with us.’

While Freddie’s Bolton debut was considered a resounding success, Ibex’s days in London were numbered. ‘Just a few weeks later, all the promise of the summer started to fall apart,’ says Ken Testi. The first to go was Mike Bersin, who enrolled at art college in Liverpool (‘I’d promised my parents I’d do this after the summer’). While ‘Tupp’ Taylor elected to remain in London, ‘Miffer’ Smith seemed poised to do what he’d been threatening all summer. As Chris Smith says, ‘Whenever things were going badly, “Miffer” always used to say, in this real Ringo voice, “I just want to go home and be a milkman.”’

Testi was also considering a place at college in St Helens. On 8 September, he hitchhiked back to Liverpool. No sooner had he arrived then he took a phone call from Mike Bersin. ‘Ibex had been offered a gig, Mike had called the others and they’d arranged to borrow a van, and could I go back to London and pick them up and all the gear?’ says Testi.

Undaunted, he scrounged a lift back to the M6 where he stuck out his thumb, finally making it back to London at 11 p.m. The following morning, Smile’s roadie Pete Edmunds dropped off the Transit, which Ken loaded up with Ibex’s gear, most of which was stashed at Imperial College in a room at the top of a spiral staircase. As Ken manhandled the amps down the narrow stairwell, ‘Freddie managed a pair of maracas and a tambourine’. With the van loaded,
Testi climbed behind the wheel to make the 176-mile drive back to Liverpool. Squeezed in the seats, between Fred, ‘Tupp’ Taylor, ‘Miffer’ Smith, Pat McConnell, guitar cases, amps and a drum kit were Brian May and Roger Taylor.

Ibex’s gig that night was at the Sink on Hardman Street, a dank basement club in which The Rolling Stones were said to have played their debut Liverpool gig. As Ken recalls, ‘Roger, Brian and Fred were wearing what passed for fashionable in Kensington – lots of velvet and fur. That was something unknown in Liverpool. Outside the club Roger informed us that he’d been accosted by some local youths who rather took exception to the way he was dressed.’ Taylor later claimed that he flashed his student library card, pretending it was a membership card to a martial arts club. ‘He said, “Look! I have to show you this before I kill you … I’m a black belt third dan … in …
origami
,”’ chuckles Ken. ‘Supposedly the youths backed off.’

Testi’s schoolfriend and Ibex roadie Geoff Higgins had often taped the band’s gigs and rehearsals. His one surviving tape, recorded on a Grundig TK14 reel-to-reel, is Ibex’s performance at the Sink. Standing stage right, Geoff draped the Grundig’s crystal microphone over a rusty nail and hoped for the best. The recording has Ibex clattering through Cream’s ‘We’re Going Wrong’, The Beatles’ ‘Rain’, Elvis’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and Led Zeppelin’s ‘Communication Breakdown’; making up in raw enthusiasm what they lack in expertise. According to Higgins, the Sink stage was so small that Fred had to stand in front of it, not that this inhibited his moves. Listening now, Mike Bersin’s crowning moment is the Hendrix/Jeff Beck blues staple ‘Rock Me Baby’; ‘Miffer’ Smith shines at holding the beat while others are losing their way, while Fred’s Robert Plant-like squeal on ‘Communication Breakdown’ is testament to hours spent practising and terrorising the neighbours, at home. ‘Freddie had a real thing about Robert Plant and that first Zeppelin album,’ says Bersin. ‘He was forever wandering around the flat singing snatches of it, especially the “never never never never gonna leave you babe” bit from “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”.’

‘Tupp’ Taylor is less impressed: ‘When I listen to that bootleg, I think, “God, we were awful.” We couldn’t hear ourselves properly.
Freddie was no Winwood, Marriott or Cocker, he didn’t have that kind of soul, and at the beginning, his pitching was awful, but what he was fantastic at from the start was the show.’ Sadly, what the Sink recording doesn’t include is the encore. Geoff Higgins claimed the tape ran out just before Roger Taylor and Brian May joined Ibex for renditions of what Geoff recalls as a couple of Smile songs. ‘So we had three-quarters of Queen in the place,’ reflects Testi, ‘although none of us knew that at the time.’