First of all welcome to p99!
Bards are great! so are Shaman! Really I'd just recommend playing what you think you'd enjoy. I'd take a look at the wiki (wiki.project1999.com) and research the classes (read up on spells/songs/quests/gear suggestions/leveling guides) to get a general feel for the "era" of EQ again. I'm not certain, but the classes may have changed on live compared to how they'll play on p99. So it might be good to get familiar again with what to expect with each class.
The Iksar idea you had sounded like a lot of fun for a new experience, especially because Kunark is a great leveling continent. You can always run your bard to Kunark though and lvl and come up with a role play concept as to why.
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No matter what you choose I think you'll have fun here. The community is generally pretty cool and the groups are pretty frequent (I've found) through out the leveling experience.