Chapter 25: Crystal and Gold

Opening at Crystal

January 27 – 31, 1977

When we arrived at the Crystal Ballroom around nine-thirty, the place was already a hive of activity. Paddy was in the kitchen area, cursing at his sons, complaining about how the previous electrician had installed some circuits. Paul Ramos was running around with a clipboard in hand, organizing his workers to get the last few items finished.

The stage looked impressive; the two drum kits in the centre, four Marshall stacks flanking them, and to the left hand side, a Rhodes shaped object covered in cloth; what I assumed was my Christmas present from Lori and Megan, the new Stage 88 piano. We went up onto the stage where Glenn and Garry were finishing off their final cable testing.

“Hey good to see you guys; we’re just about ready for the first sound checks,” Glenn said.

He passed around some headsets; they had a single earpiece and a small mike boom. Each plugged into a rectangular belt mounted box.

“These are the wireless headsets I was telling you about,” he said to Murph and Mary Beth. “Each has a low powered VHF FM transceiver; there’s a micro-cell repeater up in the stage top. See the push to talk button here?” He pointed to a small button on the top of the box. “That activates your mike, just talk into it normally. With the repeater, there’s a range of maybe two-fifty metres, so anywhere in the building will be covered.”

Murph and Mary Beth each put on one of the headsets; all up there were six; Glenn and Garry already had one on each, plus Ros and Wendy had the remaining ones. The idea was that someone could be out in the main hall, even on the upstairs balcony, and be able to communicate back to whoever was at the consoles. They even had a feed of the audio back through the mixer into the foldback system, so if there were specific instructions to one of us on stage, we could hear then through our speakers.

I checked out the main mixing desk; the sound console was huge. I counted thirty-two main channels, with additional tape input and outputs, plus the radio feed. The desk looked like it could be expanded, and Garry confirmed that the chassis could support an additional sixteen input channels, and another independent set of output stereo controls.

“It’s cheaper in the long run to get something with plenty of expansion capability,” he said. Just as well, because since we started this project, you’ve added another two people, so we are close to capacity on this unit. But we can get more channels; they sell them in two channel sets.”

“I still need to get the spotlights aimed and focussed properly,” Murph said. “With the old man tied up with the kitchen electrics, we’ll have to do it ourselves.”

It turned out that on Monday, when the council inspector was giving the place the final examination for the certificate of occupancy, he discovered that the electrical wiring for the kitchen area wasn’t up to code. Not only had old, non-approved circuit breakers been installed, but there was no earth leakage detector; which was mandatory anywhere near water, and the cable run to the sub-board for the kitchen was inadequate for the power load. Paul Ramos was livid; apparently he tore strips off his electrical contractor – that is, his ex-contractor. Fortunately Paddy was still around, and available to do the necessary re-work. The inspector was coming back around noon, hence all of the frantic activity in that area. None of that directly affected us; all of the electrical work in the stage area passed the inspection with a clean bill of health.

I removed the cover from the new Rhodes, and sat at the keyboard. I played a few chords, and was amazed at the different in touch from my old keyboard. The sound was very good, too; and that was just through the internal amp and speakers; the main PA system hadn’t been fired up yet.

“This is fantastic!” I said. “So much better than my old one!”

“Your old one was probably made in the ‘60’s,” Glenn said. “The hammer tips on those were made from felt; while the later models have a neoprene rubber. I know a guy who is a Rhodes expert; he can do a full service on the old one for you, replace all the hammer tips.”

“Okay, let’s see about firing things up here,” Garry said. “I’ll go out into the hall, Mary Beth you and Glenn can be at the mixer, and we’ll work through each channel in turn.”

Everybody got their instruments set up, Glenn patched the radio system up to the foldback channel and under their direction, and we each tested out our mike systems. Meanwhile, Murph was up above us on the lighting catwalks, adjusting the lights. I quickly realized the advantage of the radio mike system that Glenn and Garry had installed; with one of them out in the main part of the hall, they could give directions to the people on the desk, or one of us directly. As well, Ros was able to give Murph directions on how well he had each spotlight aimed.

With all of the individual channels adjusted, it was time to try things out for real. Murph had finished the lighting adjustments, so he took his place at the lighting console. Garry suggested we start with something with a decent amount of ‘punch’, just to give the amps and speakers a good workout. I moved from the Rhodes to stand in front of my Marshall, put on the red Strat, turned most of the controls right up to give plenty of overdrive distortion, and hit the opening chords to ‘Smoke on the Water’. Andrew picked it up immediately; launching into the bass line, and Bruce started in on drums.

I thought things sounded pretty hot; particularly when Rachel matched Bruce on the drums. The two of them were completely in sync. I took a deep breath, and launched into the verse.

We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn’t have much time
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky

I could hear the others backing my vocals on the final line; then Phil launched into a screaming guitar solo. Considering it was the first time we had ever played that song as a group, it sounded pretty good. The acoustics of the place were great; the foldback system was almost perfect. I wished I was able to hear how we sounded out in the main part of the hall; I felt it would have been almost as good as when I played that with Salamon.

“That was great; what did you have the main amps set at, Mary Beth?” Garry asked. “Everything sounded pretty clean.”

“The main system was at seven, and the upstairs ones at six,” she said. “Do you want me to bump them up a bit more?”

“Maybe a little later, I want to get the equalisers set up first.”

The two of them made some adjustments to the equalisers, played some pre-recorded material, listening to it at various locations around the hall. They repeated the process a few times until they were happy with the settings.

“Okay, let’s try some of your regular stuff, and see how that sounds. Around lunchtime, George, Harry and Fifa are coming over, I’m sure those guys won’t be able to resist getting up on the stage themselves.”

We ran through the first few songs of what would be our opening set; at least from where I sat on the stage, things sounded pretty good; I was sure it sounded even better in the hall. By the time we had finished four songs, George, Harry and Fifa had arrived; they had brought Ted Albert along with them.

“Sounding bloody good, all of you,” George said. “I told you this place would be perfect, Ted. I hear Will and Megan have been wowing crowds with some of our old songs, maybe Harry and I can join you and play them.”

I gave my spare strat to George, while Harry strapped on Megan’s Maton.

“Come on, Ted, you sit at that piano,” George said. “You still remember how to play it, don’t you?”

Ted looked at me, and asked if he might play the Rhodes; I told him that he was more than welcome.

“Okay, you guys lead off and we’ll pick it up as we go along. Give those amps plenty of herbs, Mary Beth, we want to see if we can shake the dust out of the speakers!”

I looked around; everybody seemed to be ready. This was probably one of the most surreal things I had done; I was about to lead out one of Australia’s classic rock songs; with the guys that wrote it, and made it a huge hit. This was right up there alongside playing with AC/DC at the Lifesaver.

I played the opening riff of ‘Good Times’, and looked across at Ted. He was playing the piano opening, a huge grin on his face. When I launched into the opening verse, I could see George and Harry smiling, encouraging me. Maybe last week when I was away the rest of the group must have worked though this song; we had both drummers going, the horns backing the melody, and the three girls sang backup during the chorus.

When we finished that, it was right into ‘Make You Happy’, this time with Megan singing lead. She blew it out of the water; I’m sure having the full band; plus the extra people behind her gave her some extra energy. When we finished, Ted, George and Harry just looked at her, amazed. All of the other workers in the building had stopped what they were doing, and were standing in the hall, watching us. At the end of the song, the all clapped loudly.

“Fucken hell!” George swore. “I don’t think we ever did those songs anywhere near as good, not when we had Stevie in front. Shit, girl, you can really belt stuff out. Didn’t I tell you Ted, she’s something special. And you, you need to get your arse out of that office, and up on stage more often.”

“No, I don’t think I could handle it, playing live all the time, I’ll leave that to you young ones. But thanks for letting me join in; I haven’t had that much fun in years, not since I played on some of the original recordings. Now, that brings me to one of the reasons why I came along today; Megan, you are probably the best female rock singer I’ve heard in my life. And Will, you are as good a front man as anyone around. Next week we want to start on your next album; I know George and Harry have been working on some songs, so since I assume you both will be back at your studies in March, we only have next month to record it.

“Sounds pretty good; I don’t think we’ve got anything coming up in the next few weeks,” I said.

“Remember, we told Mr. Thomas we would go up to the old school to present them with the poster of us,” Megan said. “That’s probably Thursday or Friday of next week.”

“Anyway, let Fifa know when you are available,” he replied. “Now I have to see Alex about a few things; you two and Lori might want to come with me.”

We followed Ted down the stairs to the main hall; he found Alex, and said something to him, and then the two of them went up the main staircase to the upper level, and into Alex’s office; with us following.

“Your place here is great Alex,” Ted said. “It’s going to be perfect for the two proposals that I said I wanted to speak with you about.”

“I’m open to anything,” Alex said. “First, let me say that your sound guys have done a fantastic job; not that normally we’ll be having loud rock music, but the system sounds great. Your other people, Lori; Ros, Chris, and all of them have done a fantastic job with the stage. And I don’t know where I would be without Paddy fixing the potential disaster we had with the electrical stuff. If you hadn’t had that meeting with Paul, Will, this project would never have been completed; it would have been a disaster.”

“Okay, the first thing I want to talk to you about is Megan and Will’s album is being awarded a gold record,” Ted said. “I want to see if we can make the formal presentation here one day next week. It will give you some good publicity, too, Alex; most of the music industry and journalists will be present, maybe your kitchen staff could provide the food and drink catering?”

“Sounds great to me; it would be good publicity, and the more people that know about this place the better.”

“Great; Fifa, can you work with Alex to sort out the details, I’ll let everyone know what’s going on.”

So the album made gold, which was fantastic. I guess quite a few copies had been sold over the last week or two; I had lost track of the total sales, or even where the single was on the charts.

“Now, the other idea that I had was to make this place the go to venue for middle of the road and dance musicians; sort of like how the ‘Basement’ is for jazz musicians. We are going to be organizing a number of international musicians touring Australia this year, and I was thinking of making an unofficial stop here. The name I’ve tentatively come up with is “Saturday Jam at the Crystal’. We would still have the Roberttones as the ‘house band’, but the visiting star would have a quiet jam session; we wouldn’t publicise it extensively; it would just be an event for the music scene.

“Some of the artists I have in mind are Tony Bennett, Ricky Nelson, Cab Calloway. There are several others that I have yet to confirm, but I think you get the idea. I still need to work out a hell of a lot of details, but in principal, what do you think?”

“It sounds interesting. I wouldn’t want Rock stuff, where the audience might get a bit out of control, and ruin the place.”

“No, nothing like that,” Ted said, assuring him. “We would provide security and all that, too.”

“I like the idea,” Alex said. “Let’s work on it, I’m sure we can come up with a decent plan.”

The two of them stood up, and shook hands.

“Great, I’m looking forward to working with you, Alex,” Ted said. “Now, I’ve taken too much time out of my day; I need to get back to the office.”

We headed back down to the main hall; I wasn’t quite sure what had transpired in there, but I knew great things were in store for us. The rest of the group, plus the others from Alberts were sitting at two large tables in the main hall; we sat down, poured ourselves something to drink and I grabbed a slice of pizza. We talked about what Ted had just proposed.

Paul Ramos came up to sit with us; he start to talk to Paul Winters, Bruce and Andrew about his next building project; Alex had bought an office building in Marrickville; which needed complete refurbishment. He wanted Paul (Ramos) to manage the project. A fire had burnt out the top floor, and he wanted that fitted out for his company’s office; while the other two floors would be for various professional suites and shops. Paul Ramos offered Paul Winters a job as a trainee draftsman, and Bruce and Andrew as carpenters / cabinetmakers on the project. He had already engaged Paddy as his main electrical subcontractor; since he told the previous subbie that he would never use him again.

I was amazed at how rapidly things were progressing; all of the uncertainties I had earlier in the week had vanished. Lori was talking with Fifa; she was looking at her big diary, working out when we could fit in the studio work for the next album. From what I could pick up from what George was saying, he wanted the rest of the group to work on it as the backing band; I didn’t want the album title to make it appear that Megan and I were somehow not part of the Roberttones. Maybe it could be “The Roberttones, featuring Winters and Morris”, or something like that.

We finished our lunch, and Phil reminded us that we still had a lot of rehearsing to do, before the official ‘dress rehearsal’ of the Ballroom this evening.

“Enough of the fooling around,” he said. “Let’s work through some of our sets, and see if they work out.”

Meanwhile, the council building inspector had come and gone; everything was now fine with the electrical work in the kitchen; the place had all of the necessary approvals to operate.

We got into some serious rehearsing; as we worked through each of the sets; Murph and Mary Beth operated the lights and mixer; while Glenn, Garry, Lori, George and Harry observed from the main room. They provided instant feedback to the two on the panels, and they could adjust things making notes about what worked and what didn’t. We took a break in mid-afternoon, feeling pretty confident about how we sounded. Alex brought two other guys up to the stage; they were engineers from the local public radio station, 2MBS-FM, and they were planning on doing a live broadcast of the opening night.

They had a special interface unit that they wanted to connect to an output of our mixer; they would run cables out the back of the building to their O/B van, which had a radio link back to their main studio at Five Dock. We helped run the cable from the back of the stage, through the storeroom, and out a window to the side carpark where their van was. Meanwhile, Mary Beth connected their equipment to one of the auxiliary output jacks of the mixer.

When we resumed the rehearsal, the broadcast guys tested their link; after some adjustments to their radio system and getting the antenna pointed directly towards their studio, everything appeared to be working. They disconnected the cable to their van, and we left it coiled up in the storeroom, ready to connect tomorrow night.

At five we finished up the rehearsing; Alex wanted to get everything in the ballroom set up properly for the full dress rehearsal in the evening. We headed home to have a quick dinner, and get dressed for the evening’s performance. When we arrived back just after six-thirty; the place was starting to fill up. We had been given a large number of complementary tickets for family and friends; the purpose was to have the place full. Alex wanted the kitchen and service staff to also get a good trial; to make sure everything in that department was ready for the official opening.

As well as my parents; I had also invited a bunch of people from Uni; David and Claire, Garry and Jill, Barry, Trevor, Linda, and a couple of the others. None from the ‘Greg and Jenny’ clique though. In fact, I didn’t know how many of those would be back this year. I talked to all of them, told them to have a great evening, and who to let know if there were any problems. I then went over to the table where my parents were sitting with Lori’s parents and Megan’s parents; they were all excited to hear how things sounded.

Mandy pulled me to one side, to introduce me to her parents; she was standing with Andrew talking with them. I noticed they were holding hands. I finished talking with them, caught up with a few other people – the people from Alberts had two of the booths. I tried to convince Ted Albert that he should join us on stage again, but he declined, with a smile.

“I’m looking forward to hearing all of you performing; Popsy even convinced me to have some dances with her,” he said.

I had never met his wife before, so I introduced myself to her, and shook her hand. It was about time for us to get ready to start playing, so I excused myself, and made my way up to the stage with the others. We took our places; Murph and Mary Beth were at their control consoles; meanwhile Ros, Wendy, Robyn and Sally were around in the audience with the radio headsets.

Right on seven; Murph dimmed the house lights, and bought up the lights on the backdrop and the spots on the stage. Phil stepped up to the microphone, and introduced us.

“Good evening, and welcome to the Crystal Ballroom; we are the Roberttones, and we will be providing the music for what we hope will be an enjoyable evening of dancing and entertainment for you,” he said.

That was my cue to cut in.

“Actually, our full name is ‘Brian Roberts and the Roberttones,” I said. “Our lead singer, Brian Roberts hasn’t arrived here yet...”

“Where’s Brian!” some people in the audience called out; they clearly knew the history of ‘Brian’.

“Well, this would have been the first time he has even been to this part of Sydney,” I explained. “The last I heard he was still going back and forth across the Harbour Bridge, and isn’t able to find the right lane to be in to get to the exit.”

Everyone laughed; clearly, the ‘legend’ of Brian had travelled to the new venue. We started on the introduction to the first song, ‘The Way You Look Tonight’, and Phil introduced all of the band members, much as he had done last night at the Mirage. At the end of the first set; Murph turned the stage lights off and changed the backdrop to the ‘1950’s Diner’ ready for the second set. This was to be the swing / jive set, where members of the ‘Inner West Swing and Jive’ dance club would be demonstrating the dance styles.

After I introduced the dance club, we started the set with the Glenn Miller piece ‘In the Mood’, and shifted to some of the more recent ‘Rockabilly’ numbers. The dancers were incredible; their energy was amazing. We played at a pretty fast tempo, but they had no problems keeping up with the music. Some of the audience joined in dancing, mainly on the slower pieces. We ended the set with Ol ‘55s ‘On the Prowl’; from where I was, the whole set seemed to go pretty well.

As we took out break, the president of the dance club came up to me, and thanked me for the set.

“That’s probably the best music we’ve ever had for our dancing,” he said. “Sure, we have records, but there’s nothing like the energy of live music. I’m hoping we can make this a regular session, maybe one night a week.”

I told him to speak with Alex about that; but we really enjoyed playing for them.

“Having people so clearly enjoying our music is a big boost to us,” I said.

We continued on with the final two sets; and at the end of the night, there was a full review up in the main office. Everyone thought the sound quality was pretty good; the volume levels were fine; people could hear the music without it drowning out conversation at the tables. People thought the lighting and the different stage backdrops were good, too. There had been one or two problems with the serving of the food; Paul Ramos had to get one of his carpenters in to change the swinging doors into the kitchen serving area, and there had been a problem with the hot water to one of the sinks in the kitchen. But all in all, everything looked good for the opening night.

Alex was particularly impressed with our music; it was exactly what he had envisioned back when he had the initial concept for the ballroom. He said that every person who had spoken to him at the end of the evening mentioned how good the music was, and how much they enjoyed dancing to our playing.

“I guess that’s only to be expected,” he said, “given how you lot have been doing this for three years. As soon as I heard your album, I knew you were what I wanted for the ballroom. Thank you for all your hard work getting us to this stage; Lori for pulling things together, Ros for the fantastic artwork, and to introducing that mad Irishman Paddy to Paul, he really saved our bacon with the electrical work. I guess I’ll see you here tomorrow for the official opening?”

We told him we would be back here before six tomorrow evening, just in case there was anything that needed attention. We headed back to our places; agreeing to meet in our studio at ten, to go over how everything went. When we got back home, Lori and Megan asked me if I would mind spending the night with Jillian; since they wanted to be together tonight. I didn’t mind, and Jillian jumped at the chance to sleep with me.

“You don’t mind being told to sleep with me?” she asked. “It’s almost like I’m a consolation prize, or something.”

“Not at all,” I replied. “Every so often, one of us wants a break from all three of us being together. I think that with both Lori and Megan having their periods at the moment, they just want to be together; just the two of them. Besides, you know how much I love sleeping with you ... Now get that dress off, now isn’t the time for both of us to be fully dressed. Clothes make it hard for me to see and feel your tits.”

“They are all yours to do whatever you want with them,” she said as she removed her dress, and tossed her underwear in the corner of the room. “Get your clothes off, too.”

I quickly removed my clothes, and we stood in front of one of the windows, looking out at the view. She moved to stand in front of me, her backside pressing against my prick. As I caressed her breasts, she rubbed her arse back and forward; my cock quickly responded and became hard. She reached behind her, pulling my stiffy down, sliding it between her thighs and pressing up against her wet pussy.

“I love how our bodies respond to each other,” she said. “Your cock is big and hard, and my cunt is hot and wet, and I am ready to take you inside. Fuck my here, right now, in front of the window.”

She bent forward, holding either side of the dormer recess, with her arse and pussy pointing towards me. I held my shaft, and pressed my knob against her wet slit; she wriggled slightly, my knob started to spread her lips apart, and with a push I was inside her. She pushed back against me, and I slid all the way up inside her lovely wet cunt.

“Yeah, fill my cunt with your glorious prick,” she said. “God, I love you fucking me, particularly right here in view of the world. I imagine there are people outside, looking up at the window, watching us fucking.”

“We really have to do something in public, you and me,” I said. “Maybe we can try the ‘sex on the train’ thing that some of us did last year.”

“Yes, please, I would love that. Do you think we can try it one night this coming week?”

She kept talking about how much she would enjoy us having sex in a semi-public location; just how much the thought of doing that turned her on. Meanwhile, I squeezed her breasts, and continued thrusting in and out. Before long her words changed into a indecipherable moan; punctuated every so often by an ‘oh yeah’ and instructions like ‘fuck me harder’. Even those words became unintelligible as her body shook and she cried out as she came.

I took my hands from her breasts, and held her hips tightly to me as she convulsed; I didn’t want her falling over, or even having my prick pull out of her. I felt that I was getting close to coming; I resumed pumping in and out. After some hard thrusting into her, I held her against me as I spurted inside her. She cried out with pleasure as she felt my hot spunk hitting the top of her cunt. When I had finished coming, I picked her up, turned around and carried her across to her bed, with my prick still inside her.

I set her down on the bed; and pulled my softening prick from her. She pulled the covers back on the bed, and we lay down together. I propped my back up on the pillows, and I could look across the room, through the window to the lights outside. I had already noticed that with all the lights around, so close to the city centre, it was impossible to see any stars in the sky. At least I could see the tops of the houses heading up the rise towards Newtown.

Jillian lay next to me, her head on my chest. She moved her hand down my stomach, and gently started brushing her fingers across my softening prick. She pressed her thumb against the tip; spreading some of my come around my knob; she then licked and sucked her thumb clean.

“I love your taste,” she said.

“And I love how you taste, too.”

My prick was starting to get erect again, and Jillian moved down on the bed, kneeling up over my groin. She bobbed down, licking around my knob and sucking my shaft until I was completely hard. She then swung a leg across my waist, and lowered herself down, letting my prick impale her cunt. As she slid slowly down onto me, she sighed softly. She leant forward, taking her weight on my shoulders, and rode me slowly; sliding up and down with long strokes, letting my cock travel the full length of her cunt.

After a while, as she got closer to coming, she sped up, until she was pounding down hard on my prick. I felt the squeezing of her cunt around my prick, and the warm gush of her juices as she came, crying out at the same time. I grabbed her hips, and started thrusting up and down into her, since she had stopped moving; and I was close to coming again. With a loud groan, I burst, spurting deep inside her. Jillian cried out as she felt my hot spurts. She fell forward, lying along my chest, and I put my arms around her, holding her to me.

We lay together like that for a few minutes, and then she rolled off my body, letting my prick slip out of her. She curled up on the bed next to me, her head on my shoulder, and she gently caressed my chest and nipples.

“There’s something so special about fucking, I mean, making love with you,” she said. “I love feeling your prick inside me; and when you come ... I could do that forever.”

“You would need to give me suitable breaks to recover.”

“I’m sure you’re good for at least another two or three tonight,” she said, and rubbed her fingers along my shaft. “If not right away, maybe a bit later. What if you snuggle up behind me, and have him pressed up against my pussy and arse?”

She rolled over, and I spooned behind her. She sighed as I caressed her breast, and she reached back to position my prick between her thighs, pressing up against her pussy. We held each other close, and drifted off to sleep.

Not that we slept all that long before I was woken by Jillian rubbing my shaft, and trying to push my knob inside her. We made sleepy midnight love, and drifted back to sleep, with me still inside her.