From a half-empty show in San Antonio to Formula 1 champions of rock: Queen's long road to Austin

On Saturday, iconic British band Queen will rock the Formula One Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas with Adam Lambert, who has been filling in for the group's late singer Freddie Mercury for the past decade. This will be the band's first appearance in Austin, but it's not the first time they've rocked Texas.

Here are some memorable Queen moments in the Lone Star State.

Freddie Mercury and Queen once played a half-full concert hall in San Antonio

Queen first landed Stateside in 1975 during their Sheer Heart Attack Tour. Concert photographer Tom Callins, then a 15-year-old young music lover, caught the show at the Municipal Auditorium in San Antonio, which had a capacity of roughly 6,500.

"That show was maybe half sold-out," Callins told the Houston Chronicle in 2018.

But the crowd was enthusiastic. According to setlist.fm, the band kicked off their set with "Procession" and closed the main set with "In The Lap Of The Gods ... Revisited." In two encores they covered Cy Coleman's "Big Spender," Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock" and "Be Bop-A-Lula" by Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps.

During that tour, the band also played McFarlin Auditorium on the Southern Methodist University campus.

Queen played Houston and Dallas in 1977-1978

1977, the year of the Silver Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth II, was also a banner year for the band Queen, who sold out two nights at Madison Square Garden during the North American leg of their "A Day at the Races" tour.

By this time, the band had shaken up their sound, mixing everything from heavy metal to light opera as they folded "Bohemian Rhapsody" into every set.

That year the band played Houston several times. They played the Moody Coliseum on the SMU campus on Feb. 25 and the Sam Houston Coliseum on Feb. 26 as part of the "A Day At The Races Tour."

In December, they played the Summit in Houston and the Tarrant County Convention Center in Fort Worth as part of the "News Of The World Tour." There's a playlist of videos from the December show at the Summit available on YouTube. (H/T KLAQ 95.5 FM El Paso.)

On Oct. 28, 1978, the band opened their "Jazz" tour at the Dallas Convention Center. A couple days later, the band played New Orleans for Halloween. According to Wikipedia (citing Rolling Stone), that show "featured snake charmers, strippers, crossdressers and a naked fat lady who smoked cigarettes in her crotch." We have not been able to dig up reports of similar shenanigans in Texas.

Audio for the full Dallas concert is available on YouTube.

In the '80s Freddie Mercury rocked a cowboy hat, rode on Darth Vader

Part of Freddie Mercury's stage schtick during "The Game" tour in 1980 was to return to the stage for an encore riding on the shoulders of someone dressed as Darth Vader, or occasionally Superman.

Texas photographer Callins caught an iconic photo of Mercury singing "We Will Rock You" piggy backing the "Star Wars" baddie at the band's 1980 show at the Summit. "Star Wars" was all the rage at the time, and when Mercury rode Vader into the arena it was "pandemonium," Callins told the AV Club in 2015. "Everybody just thought it was so funny, so Freddie. It was so over-the-top. (Laughs.) Everybody got a chuckle out of it, but a cheer went up. It was a happening, you know? Everybody got into it."

The website Houston Rocks also has photos of the Darth ride, as well as shots of Mercury rocking a cowboy hat.

The Modern Rocks gallery in Austin sells prints of Callins' Darth Mercury photo starting at $600.

Side note: Apparently fans hated Freddie Mercury's mustache so much during this tour that they threw razors at him.

Second side note: The city of Houston sold the Summit, once home to the Houston Rockets, in 2005. It is now home to Joel Osteen's megachurch.

Queen with Freddie Mercury last played Texas in 1982

The final Queen tour to come to the United States was the "Hot Space," outing which hit Dallas and Houston in August 1982. The band was beginning to splinter, with several members, including guitarist Brian May and Freddie Mercury, working on solo or side projects. After they wrapped the tour, they returned to the U.S. in September to appear on "Saturday Night Live," where they performed "Under Pressure" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love."

Mercury was struggling with nodes on his vocal chords and was allegedly hoarse following a screaming match with his boyfriend Bill Reid.

It would be the band's final U.S. performance with Freddie fronting the band. Mercury died of complications from HIV/AIDS in 1991.

Queen + Adam Lambert have played Houston and Dallas

Singer Adam Lambert first connected with Brian May and Roger Taylor from Queen as a contestant on the singing competition "American Idol" in 2009. The band began performing with Lambert playing Mercury's role in 2011.

The first Queen + Adam Lambert tour hit Dallas and Houston in 2014. Following tours came to Texas' two largest cities in 2017 and 2019.

The band's Formula One show will be their first appearance in Austin. Tickets to the show are included with race tickets. General admission wristbands for Formula One United States Grand Prix are $425 for two-day tickets and $475 for three-day.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: A brief history of Queen in Texas ahead of their first Austin concert