![\"Supervet](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/bc398eff-693f-4060-99f1-8e04ad166f22.jpg\")
<\/p>\nDespite the lashing rain that day, the then teenager from Ballyfin, Co Laois was fired up with excitement by the mesmerising performance of frontman Freddie Mercury and Queen\u2019s iconic guitarist Brian May in particular.<\/p>\n
Fitzpatrick, now 58, would go on to become a pioneer of neuro-orthopaedic surgery for dogs and cats and achieve fame through his Channel 4 show, The Supervet.<\/p>\n
And in recent years he\u2019s become something of a rock star himself having learned to play guitar and launched his own band with the support of\u2026 Queen legend Brian May.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Supervet Noel Fitzpatrick with Queen guitarist Brian May and Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a story you couldn\u2019t make up. \u201cIt really was Freddie Mercury and Queen at Slane Castle in \u201886 that inspired me because I was just blown away that day,\u201d Noel says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was my first ever rock concert and this guy in a tracksuit and a cloak came out with a crown on his head in a big puff of smoke and with a man with big hair behind him and my world exploded.\u201d<\/p>\n
Going back, Fitzpatrick remembers being hugely passionate about music as a child. \u201cI found an old Sony radio on a scrap heap in Mountmellick and I put an aerial into it using a coat hanger and at that time, I was about 10 or 11, I had never heard rock music,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tuned in by chance to Radio Luxembourg and can you believe the first rock song I ever heard was Led Zeppelin\u2019s Stairway To Heaven.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you imagine that for a little 10-year-old boy in Ballyfin, suddenly hearing that there was this world outside. Then Black Sabbath followed, and then Queen and Bowie and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n
He remembers at the time pretending to be a rocker on the family farm with a makeshift guitar that involved six lengths of twine as strings wrapped around a sack of 10-10-20 fertiliser.<\/p>\n
Life would eventually take him into the veterinary world as a career and he says he climbed the ladder in his chosen profession through sheer hard graft.<\/p>\n
\u201cSchool was tough because I wasn\u2019t the brightest spanner in the box,\u201d Noel says. \u201cI just had to work my a**e off and study, get into vet school and study more, went to drama school to learn how to speak and talk, did professorships\u2026 and the years go by.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2018 Fitzpatrick launched a one man stage show, Welcome To My World, sharing stories about his life and his passion for animal welfare.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a sketch in the spoken word show where I said, \u2018Ladies and gentlemen, this could have turned out very differently because when I was 10 or 11 I wanted to be the fella with the big hair that played the guitar\u2026 Brian May of Queen.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBrian comes to see one of the shows and I didn\u2019t tell him about the sketch. He came up to me afterwards and said, \u2018Dear boy I never realised, that\u2019s an incredible compliment.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI had got to know Brian because he has a wildlife centre near where I work and I mended a lot of hedgehogs for him. I love hedgehogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen in 2023 he left a voice message saying, I\u2019m heading for a tour with my little band [Queen]. I\u2019m only down the road, I\u2019m going to pop in on the way home from rehearsals.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe comes in in his shorts and he goes, \u2018Right, the time is now, what song are we going to play? I said, \u2018Brian, you are one of the greatest rock guitarists that ever walked planet earth and I\u2019m just a vet.\u2019 He said, \u2018No, no, no, the time is now. It\u2019s never too late to discover the child in you, you are allowed, you know.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019What song are we going to play?\u2019 I said we are not going to play anything, Brian, because I can\u2019t play guitar.\u2019 He wasn\u2019t taking no for an answer and he taught me the chords to [the Queen song] One Vision.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m the only person you know who then went on tour not being able to play guitar and learned in front of people. I practised in the back of the van on the way to the gig because I was going to the gig three days after he popped in.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrian rings me on show number five and he goes, \u2018how is it going, dear boy?\u2019 I said, \u2018It\u2019s going terrible Brian, last night a guy who is in music, who I know very well, told me if I ever picked up a guitar again he would never speak to me again.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBrian said, \u2018Oh, dear boy I forgot to tell you something about playing guitar.\u2019 I said, \u2018Well, it\u2019s time now Brian because I\u2019m just about to go on stage.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018There is no such thing as a bad chord, dear boy, there\u2019s only a chord with attitude or without attitude.\u2019 So that night I went out on stage and I gave it attitude and the crowd went mental despite the fact that I was still no good.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I realised that what you bring to the table is your energy\u2026 and then my life changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Brian came back from tour he came to the last show and I was absolutely peeing myself because my hero was in the audience while I was playing his song\u2026 in my head really badly.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came up to me after the show and he gave me a big hug and said, \u2018I\u2019m proud of you.\u2019 That meant the world to me, he was so sweet and so encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brian May then gifted Fitzpatrick one of his guitars. \u201cThen I got a guitar in the post from Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath – bear in mind that they were the second band that I ever heard of as a kid. His message was, \u2018I know where you live, don\u2019t mess it up.\u2019 Peter Gabriel and Mike Rutherford [Genesis, Mike + The Mechanics] were also very encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fitzpatrick says he forged friendships with the music legends through his work as a vet. \u201cI\u2019m so blessed to have all these people around me who love animals and know that all I want to do with the music is spread love, hope and joy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The Noel Fitzpatrick Band, which features world class musicians who perform with everyone from Take That to ELO and Iron Maiden, will play The Greenfields Festival in Ballykilcavan Estate, Co Laois, on May 2 and 3.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am so blessed that the universe has gifted me this band of brothers,\u201d Noel adds. \u201cFor me to get to delve into this world has been a balm for my soul in life because every time I get stressed or things go wrong I go to music as the default.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd to be lucky enough to have boys around me who feel the same is just an incredible joy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite the lashing rain that day, the then teenager from Ballyfin, Co Laois was fired up with excitement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-348716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}