Chapter 37: Bicentennial Year – Part 1

A Return to Brisbane

January 1988

We were pretty slow to start on New Year’s Day; it wasn’t until early afternoon that we all got together in the studio. Fifa and Peter were there to talk about how the tours had gone so far, and the schedule for the month ahead.

“Well, it’s been great so far,” Peter said. “Huge crowds in each city, ticket sales above our estimates. It’s looking very good for this month, too. Brisbane, in particular, has sold out four of the five nights already, and the fifth night is selling well.”

“Now, that’s something we want to run past you, we are thinking of a sixth night in Brisbane, but to meet the timetable of being back here in time, we could start a day earlier, on Sunday night. That means you travelling overnight from Coffs as soon as the gig finishes on the 15th, getting ready to play on the night of the 17th. Since we don’t have to rebuild the stage, Peter assures me we can do it. What are your thoughts? It’s an extra load on you, in particular, Will.”

We were all in agreement, Phil said we owed it to the fans in Queensland for having bypassed them for years. So the schedule was adjusted.

Mary Beth wanted to go over the main schedule for the coming year, working out when all of us might be available for touring or working on an album and so on. I gave her the university schedule, I started back on February 7th, the mid-semester break was from the 15th to the 21st of May, midyear break from June 20th to the end of July, and the second-semester break from August 28th to September 3rd. The final day of classes would be November 11th, she made a note of those dates, plus school term times for some of the others.

“Now I have some definite dates to talk to the Expo people about,” Mary Beth said. “And I’ll talk to Fifa and George about when and where we might be able to tour mid-year, and I’m sure they will tell us to start working on another album. So you guys, pull your fingers out and let’s get some great songs written. That means you too, Will, I want to hear more songs from you!”

“Yes, boss,” I said, and she poked her tongue out at me.

Peter confirmed that at each location we would be sleeping in the accommodation trailer, but with access to separate bathroom facilities. There were plenty of places for us to eat close to where we were playing. Mary Beth asked for indications of how many complimentary tickets we might want to hand out at each location, for the two of us, it was just my cousins in Newcastle and Lisa’s cousins in Brisbane.

The rest of the afternoon was spent going over the equipment requirements for the final leg of the tour; we reviewed Mary Beth’s lists, checked each item of equipment, and repacked all of the tour crates ready to load onto the trucks tomorrow. Then Lisa and I went back to our bedroom and laid out the clothes that we would want to take. Some items of clothing needed washing, so we put on a load in the washing machine. I put my stage clothes in one suitcase, which could go on the truck with my equipment. The other bags – one for me, one for Lisa – would travel with us on the tour bus. With all of us, including partners and kids, there wasn’t much spare room on the bus, the less unnecessary luggage we had with us on the bus, the better.

On Sunday morning we loaded our equipment into the trucks, they headed up the highway to Newcastle and would start to erect the stage once they arrived. We got to bed early that night, tomorrow looked like being a long day; the drive to Newcastle in the bus, then a full sound and lighting check.

“So, you will have to be content with sleeping with me for the next few weeks,” she said, “instead of wild nights with Allison and Fiona.”

“Truth be told, there was a lot of talking between Allison and me, and Fiona and me, not just sex,” I said.

“I was teasing you,” she said. “You know I don’t have a problem with you sleeping with either of them when I’m not with you. What did you talk about?”

I told her about the discussions I had with Allison, how during every December, she thinks about what her life might have been like had Jillian not died, how Jillian had mentioned that with both Lori and Megan planning to move overseas, that she had hope that both she and Allison would be with me. Which, of course, never came to pass, but it’s something that Allison would often dwell on.

“I know about that,” Lisa said. “Allison mentioned that to me once, and I assured her that I completely understood how she felt about you. She knows I don’t see her as any sort of threat to our marriage. But do you think there’s a deeper problem in Allison’s life?”

“I asked her that,” I said. “I think the main issue is that with Sandra’s teaching job, they have to remain firmly ‘in the closet’. When she was with Jillian, and we were all living in Erskineville, they could be themselves, no one would take offence at two women being in a romantic relationship like that. She misses that freedom, the ability to show affection for Sandra in public.”

“I can understand, Fiona and I have a similar problem, but I’m sure it’s not as severe as with Sandra,” Lisa said. “What about Fiona? What did the two of you talk about?”

“It was mainly about the long-term future, building on that analogy she mentioned about the seasons of life,” I said. “What we both felt the future might hold for us, what we wanted in our lives, things like that. We talked about how much longer the others might be living in our house, Garry and Michelle might decide to get married and move out. Also, how much longer everyone in the group will want to continue playing; I know this might be the final twelve months for some of them, family commitments are starting to impose.”

“What about Fiona, did she indicate that she might want to move on?” she asked.

“Quite the contrary, she wants to stay with us for as long as possible,” I replied. “I know she’s really happy in what she called ‘the troika’, the three of us.”

“That’s great, I love living with her and being in the threesome. It’s funny, I never imagined myself as bisexual, I was never attracted to women that way. Well, not counting Georgina and I playing around as teenage girls, seeing what kissing was like, touching each other. But that’s quite common with girls, I think. But when Fiona ... well, she seduced me, didn’t she? I just had to make love with her, it was an uncontrollable desire. I know you don’t mind that she and I ... well, I know you enjoy having her with us that way.”

The next morning, we all had an early breakfast, as the tour bus was arriving at 7:30 to take us up to Newcastle. Desley would be staying at our place to take care of Fred, she would make sure he would get plenty of food, water and attention. Truth be told, given the chance I was sure Desley would ‘catnap’ Fred and keep him for herself. He had that effect on almost everyone, he was a very loveable cat.

With us all on the bus, it was on the road to Newcastle, and we arrived at the venue around lunchtime. The riggers had the stage pretty much assembled, all we needed to do was hang around until everything had been set up. The Newcastle gigs went well, big crowds, a fantastic and responsive audience, my cousins enjoyed the show. Coffs was much the same, big crowds with people up at the North Coast for their summer holidays, at least Lisa didn’t have food poisoning this time, and avoided a visit to the Coffs base hospital.

As soon as the last concert in Coffs was over, it was onto the bus for the final leg of the tour, up the highway to Brisbane. I was able to get some sleep, not a real lot as the bus rocked and bounced its way to Brisbane. At least once we arrived at the Boondall Stadium we were able to get to some sleeping quarters, Lisa and I got a few hours’ sleep until lunchtime. After lunch, we went through the standard sound check, there would be another, more complete one tomorrow once the setup was completed.

“Hey, Will, I’ve got an idea of another song we can do, well, mainly you,” Bruce said. “Do you know Bob Segar’s ‘We’ve Got Tonight’? It’s mainly a piano backing to the vocals, let me play the cassette, tell me what you think. I’ve got the sheet music, too.”

While Bruce was cueing up the tape, I looked at the music, spreading it across the music stand on the Clavinova. It looked fairly simple, the key was B Major, as he started the tape, I played along with the introduction. When the verse started, I tried to sing along but missed the cue.

“Start that again, Bruce,” I said.

This time, I got the timing – if not the pitch – right.

I know it’s late, I know you’re weary
And I know your plans don’t include me
Still here we are, both of us lonely
Longing for shelter from all that we see
Why should we worry, no one will care, girl
Look at the stars now so far away
We’ve got tonight
Who needs tomorrow?
We’ve got tonight, babe
Why don’t you stay?

“That’s a really beautiful song, Will,” Allison said. “I bet we can work on a good vocal backing for it.”

“That is a good one, Bruce, a pretty simple, clean arrangement. I like it,” I said.

“Something we can work on over the next month or two. It’s another one he recorded with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.”

“Where is Muscle Shoals, anyway?” Lisa asked.

“The northwest corner of Alabama, on the Tennessee River,” Mary Beth said. “Lots of musicians recorded albums at Fame Studios, it was the place in the late 1960s and early 70s to record, Aretha Franklin, Lynyrd Skynrd, the Rolling Stones, as well as Bob Segar recorded there, and their house band, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, gave the recordings their distinct sound. Paul Simons’ ‘Kodachrome’ had them on it, too.”

“Well, I don’t know if we can match them,” Paul said, “but we can give it a good shake.”

We finished the session and headed back to the accommodation area. Lisa and I lay down on our bed and cuddled.

“Who will you be thinking about when you sing that?” she asked. “I know you always have someone in mind when you sing those sort of songs, to get the right emotions.”

“Well, it’s about a casual relationship, so it can’t be you. The words ‘I know your plans don’t include me’ – that rules out. Maybe Allison?”

“That’s what I was thinking of,” she said. “You should tell her that.”

“Hello, Brisbane!” Phil said at the start of the opening set. “It’s great to be back here in your beautiful city, and we are so glad that the situation has changed that allows us to perform for you again! Are you ready to have a GOOD TIME?”

That was the cue to launch into ‘Good Times’, the opening song. The first set went very well, the crowd was fired up, and we gave it everything we had. For the second set, we would start with ‘Invasion Day’, and I would introduce the track with some appropriate words.

“Well, as we all know, 1988 is being touted as the ‘Bicentennial’,” I said. “Despite the incorrect remarks of people who should know better, it is two hundred years since the beginning of European settlement in what was then the British Colony of New South Wales. Now, for the original inhabitants of this continent, this isn’t really an occasion for big celebrations, it marks for them, the loss of their culture, their way of life, and for countless thousands of native Australians, the loss of their life. So before we get all caught up in the hoopla and fanfare of the ‘Bicentennial’, let’s spare a thought for those people who don’t really have anything to celebrate about this occasion.”

The lights changed to the colours of the Aboriginal Flag, red and yellow, and we started ‘Invasion Day’. At the end of the song, the audience reaction was somewhat subdued, which was what we had hoped for – it wasn’t a song to bring out loud cheers and applause. But at least there was no booing, which I thought was a good sign. We continued with some other songs from that album, before the ‘R&B’ grouping – ‘Treat Her Right’, “Midnight Hour’ – then the Stones songs, before ending the set with ‘Mean Woman Blues’ and “Bobby McGee’. After a break, the final set was mainly our original songs, ones from ‘The Last Wave of Summer’ album, and several of the latest ones. After the encore, it was time to call it a night. We thought everything went very well; at least the audience reaction was a good sign.

We had the chance to sleep in on Tuesday morning; Mary Beth told us that there were some members of the local music press wanting to interview us just after lunch. She felt that they were curious as to why we had not been to Brisbane for so long and had some questions about our music and plans.

“Anything in the morning papers about us?” Phil asked.

“No reviews, there might be something in the evening paper,” she replied. “Just a few small items in the ‘now performing’ section, telling people that the only night where tickets are still available.”

“Do we expect any pushback on the ‘Invasion Day’ stuff?” I asked. “I mean, Bjelkie-Petersen may have gone, but Queensland isn’t known as a bastion of indigenous rights.”

“I have no idea,” she replied. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we got some questions challenging our stance. We shouldn’t back down, and the same with what Will said introducing the song. We should have Stewie, Traci and Rachel present as well, just to show we aren’t just talk, we back it up with action.”

“If anyone is inclined to argue against what we are saying, they might be less vocal with you three there,” I said.

After lunch, we met with the media in our sitting-room; there was all of us and five people from some of the local TV, radio and newspapers. After the introductions were made, there were some ‘soft ball’ questions about how long we would be playing, if we would be appearing at Expo 88, and how it felt to be back in Brisbane. Then the reporter from the Courier-Mail asked a question about my comments regarding the Bicentennial.

“Don’t you think you were being rather pedantic with your comments on the Australian Bicentennial?” he asked. “I mean, everybody knows that Australia was founded back in 1788, you are trying to play down everything this country has achieved in the last two hundred years.”

“So, does that mean you don’t think that the establishment of Queensland as a distinct colony, splitting it from the colony of New South Wales was historically significant?” I asked. “Maybe Queensland should have stayed part of New South Wales – I mean, Australia - back in 1859, and never separated?”

“No, I’m not suggesting that at all,” he said, sounding quite indignant. “Queensland will never consider herself a part of New South Wales, we are very different from you southerners. Our values, our way of life, everything about us is distinct, and we would never want to be ruled by them. But that’s got nothing to do with when Australia was founded, which everyone knows was January 26th, 1788.”

“Sounds to me like someone didn’t pay attention to their Australian Studies at school,” I said. “You don’t recall being taught about the various constitutional conventions of the late nineteenth century, leading up to a referendum across all colonies, and Federation on January 1st, 1901? That was when Australia became a legal entity, a country in its own right. And it wasn’t until 1949 that there was such a thing as an Australian Citizen, before that we were all ‘British Subjects’. So, legally, before that Act passed, there was no such thing, in a legal sense, as ‘an Australian’. You were a British Subject who lived in Australia. I mean, if we are going to celebrate the foundation of ‘Australia’, we should at least be historically correct. What we are celebrating this year is the bicentennial – the two hundredth anniversary – of the first British settlement that became the Colony of New South Wales. Remember, at that time, the Colony of New South Wales included New Zealand, but only the eastern portion of the continent of Australia. People seem to have forgotten the true history of their country.”

“You are just splitting legal hairs there,” he said. “What we are celebrating is two hundred years of European – British – settlement of this continent. Which is something we should all be celebrating.”

“Except for the people who were living here at that time,” I said. “That didn’t work out all that well for them, did it?”

“Only because they fought the colonists,” he replied.

“Which they saw as invaders, trying to take their land.”

“That’s a very extreme view, what they call the ‘black armband’ view of history.”

“So, in the Second World War, Australia shouldn’t have bothered to fight the Japanese, stopping them on the Kokoda Track, but welcomed them as ‘colonists’?”

“That’s completely different! That’s nothing like the British colonization of Australia! You’re trying to cause divisions in the country, like all of you communist left-wingers!”

“I guess it all depends on your perspective,” I said. “One person’s colonization is another person’s invasion, it all depends on if you are the colonizer or the person being invaded.”

“That brings up a question I had,” another one of the journalists asked. “Don’t you feel that promoting that song, ‘Invasion Day’ is a bit insensitive during this Bicentennial Year?”

“I don’t know, maybe you should ask someone descended from the original inhabitants of this country how they feel about it,” I replied. “In all the bread and circuses going on this year, maybe someone should ask the native Australians how they feel about it all.”

“Are you suggesting those of us of European descent should leave, and give the country back to the Aboriginals?” the original journalist asked.

“No, I never said that,” I replied. “That’s one batch of eggs that can’t be unscrambled. But at least we can be honest about our history, acknowledge who lived on this continent before us, and not sweep things under the carpet because they might be unpleasant or something. That’s all we are trying to do, present an alternate view of history. If people don’t like what we say, then we’re not going to lose any sleep over it, but maybe, some people will think critically about what they’ve been taught and be considerate of all Australians. That’s all we can do if you don’t like our message, tough shit.”

My last comment seemed to put his nose out of joint, he chose not to ask any more questions, just sit there and scowl at me. A few of the other reporters chuckled under their breaths, and the questions turned onto other topics, like if we were planning a new album, what other tours we might be doing, and a reminder of when we would be playing at Expo. After that, we wrapped the meeting up, the journalists went off to file their stories, or whatever it was they did.

“You shut that guy down pretty well, Will,” Phil said. “Typical News Limited journalist, probably dancing to Rupert’s tune. I wonder how he will report things?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” I said. “We’ve pretty much sold out every night here anyway; let him say what he wants to.”

I put the press conference out of my mind, and we started to get ready for the evening’s performance. A quick check of the sound and lights, and then we ran through several songs; including working on the arrangement for ‘We’ve Got Tonight’. It was starting to come together fairly well, it would be ready for a public performance soon. The evening’s performance went reasonably well, the stadium looked completely packed, we would get ticket sales figures sometime tomorrow.

The next morning, Mary Beth was looking through the local papers, to see if there were any reviews of our concerts, and in the Courier-Mail, there was an article – ‘good music, terrible politics’ – written by the reporter who was at the press conference yesterday, who took exception to my remarks on the Bicentennial.

“Listen to this Will, and try not to blow a fuse,” Mary Beth said. “Let me quote what this fuckwit said:

“What is it about people in the artistic community that think the rest of us care one bit about their political views? Powerhouse Sydney rock and blues band, the Roberttones are back in Brisbane performing after an absence of almost ten years. Coincidentally, or maybe not – they refused to play in Queensland until there was a change in political leadership after comments were made about some of their political views. I suspect we may see a repeat of that, with comments by their lead singer, Will Morris – well known for his radical, socialist views – that were quite unAustralian about this year’s Australian Bicentennial. Like most of the left-wing, socialist agitators, they are trying to play down the role of the British, write them out of the history of our nation.

“Not content to play down the importance of this auspicious event, saying that ‘it’s only the two hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the colony of New South Wales ‘, as if Australia isn’t important, he then perpetuated the ‘black armband’ view that Aboriginal Australians don’t regard the founding of our nation as something to celebrate, pushing the divisive line that the British ‘invaded’ this country.”

“He goes on more in that vein, it’s like he never heard a word of what we said, explaining it, but just pushes his narrow-minded view,” she said, putting the paper down.

“Pushing Rupert Murdock’s view, more likely. The Courier-Mail is a News Limited publication, isn’t it?” I asked. “I guess if our political views are getting attacked by Murdock and Fox News, then we must be on the right track! Did he make any comment on the music?”

“A few statements that sound like he had copied them from other reviews, remarks about powerful vocals, the lights, but then he distracted himself about how we cast spurious allegations on the Catholic Church, and promote degenerate lifestyles ... Nothing we haven’t heard before.”

“I guess things haven’t changed all that much here in Queensland, despite Joh being deposed,” I said. “It will be interesting to see if there’s any change in attitudes when we are here for Expo.”

“I guess the jokes on him,” Phil said. “We don’t care what he or other people say about our political views, we just let our results speak for themselves.”

“I guess he thinks by attacking our political statements he will hurt our feelings or something,” Allison said. “We’ve never really let other people’s comments about anything other than our music worry us.”

“Well, we can put that out of our minds, we’ve still got another four nights to go here,” Mary Beth said. “Ticket sales have been excellent, every night has been sold out. We could probably have done another one or two nights and sold them out, too.”

The remainder of our week in Brisbane was uneventful; each night we played to a packed stadium, the article in the Courier-Mail critical of our statements had little effect on attendance, after our final show on the 22nd, we boarded the tour bus, and made the long trip back to Sydney. Meanwhile, the riggers and the remainder of the road crew loaded the equipment into the trucks and followed us a day later. It was a slow trip back to Sydney down the highway, at least we were able to sleep for the first six of seven hours until we reached Grafton, then it was another twelve hours of sitting in the bus. But we were back in time to have a good rest for two days before the big Australia Day festivities.

For me, the highlight would be the arrival of the ‘Second Fleet’, nine ‘tall ships’ would arrive in Sydney Harbour, where a huge flotilla of boats would be there to greet them. Lisa had asked me if we wanted to sail (or motor) ‘Young Lovers’ down from Pittwater to join in the in-water action, but I felt that there would be so many other boats on the harbour that it would be very stressful avoiding collisions. Instead, we would watch the action from Blues Point, which wasn’t all that far from home. A large protest march was planned for the centre of Sydney to Hyde Park, calling for land rights and recognition of past atrocities against aborigines.

The weather on the day was a glorious summer’s day, warm without being too hot, sunny, and the harbour looked perfect. When I saw the vast number of pleasure craft covering the water, I was glad of my decision not to take our boat to the harbour; it would have been as congested as the start of a Sydney to Hobart race, but EVERYWHERE in the harbour. The arrival of the First Fleet Re-enactment and the tall ships was particularly spectacular, and we stayed around to see the fireworks display that evening.

Farewell to Professor Allen

February 1988

For me, the summer break ended with a day’s sailing, club racing restarted with the next heat in the family race series. We took it pretty casually, finishing in the middle of the field, then enjoying the camaraderie of the barbeque on the rigging deck. Even though the Family Race series is what they call ‘no extras’, that is, no spinnakers, it was a good way for us to get back into the swing of things, after almost a two-month break. Serious racing would start next week, with the next heat of the Retriever Trophy.

Monday morning it was back at University to prepare for the start of the new academic year. My teaching load would be much the same as last year’s, the only difference was the older second-year subjects had been replaced by the equivalent Computer Engineering subjects. However, the main task ahead for this year was planning for the transfer of the Computer Science Department into the School of Computer Science Engineering; working out what the structure of the school should be, the various activity areas, subjects that would relate to each of those areas, and a staffing structure that should be able to cover all of the subjects and research areas. There was already a fair bit of documentation that the ‘task force’ had done in previous years, we just had to get it into a form to present to the Professorial Board for formal approval. Which meant filling in a lot of details, including complete subject details, estimates of tutorial and laboratory requirements, all necessary equipment and facilities upgrades, plus building and accommodation needs for staff, students and laboratories.

Some work had already been done on defining the so-called ‘activity areas’ that the school would be grouped around; Artificial Intelligence, Formal Methods and Software Engineering, Computer Architecture and VLSI Design, Information Science, Algorithms and Programming Techniques, Networks and Operating Systems, and Human-computer Interface. I was asked to look at the proposed subjects in the networking area, and with John Lions, flesh out more of the Operating Systems subjects.

Of course, the big change for the year was Murray Allen’s retirement, for the first time since the early 1960s, he wouldn’t be running the Department. He was the first head of what was original called the ‘Department of Electronic Computation’, in 1965. Ken Robinson was appointed acting head of the Department, pending the establishment of the new School of Computer Science Engineering and the selection of a new Head of School. Ken had already said that he would only take on the head of the department for one year, and he would expect the rest of the senior academic staff – including me – to share the ‘bullshit administration work’, something I wasn’t looking forward to, but a necessary evil, I suppose.

There was to be a formal retirement dinner and function for Murray, to be held in the Roundhouse on Saturday 20th, I had got two tickets for Lisa and me. Many people were expected to attend, people that he had worked with over his career, not just here at UNSW, but from the CSIRO, the University of Sydney, and AWA, along with his family.

Meanwhile, there was a lot to do fleshing out the subjects for the final two years of the Computer Engineering degree course. We had decided to split the course into four ‘streams’, a Communications Stream, an Electronics Stream, a Systems and Control Stream, and a Computing Stream. The first three would involve professional electives from the Electrical Engineering degree course, while the remaining stream would have the advanced Computer Science subjects. There would be a close level of cooperation between both the Computer Science Engineering and Electrical Engineering schools; something that had always been there, considering we were once part of the same school.

For Murray Allen’s retirement dinner, Lisa and I took the opportunity to get our formal wear out of the closet. I wore a suit underneath my doctoral robes since it was also a formal academic function, while Lisa wore her crimson gown. I joked how her gown colour was appropriate, given that the official colour for the school of Engineering was referred to as ‘claret’. Once at the Roundhouse, we found our table; we were seated with most of the others from the Computer Science Engineering School. The adjacent tables were for existing and retired Electrical Engineering staff, I noticed my father’s old colleague, Rex Vowels there with some of the other staff I recalled from my undergraduate degree period.

Before the formalities commenced, we circulated, chatting with various people that I knew. Robert Elz, who had taken over responsibility for AARNET administration from me came over and said he wanted to talk to me about something.