Chapter 18: A New Foursome

The Ent Cent

September 1 - 3, 1983

Monday morning – the first day of the mid-semester break, and the first day of our serious group rehearsals – I waited until the morning rush hour was over, then drove into the city, to Venue Music. I wanted to check some Stratocasters that their guitar expert, Alan Hawes had contacted me about, and look at a new Marshal JCM800 amp. I was impressed with the sound of the model 2203 Garry had; I still wasn’t convinced about his ‘Les Paul’ custom, I guess I had been playing Stratocasters for so long now that the shape of the body, the feel and tone just felt ‘right’.

I liked browsing through the Venue shop on Druitt Street, just opposite the Town Hall. The staff weren’t just sales people, they were all experienced musicians, they didn’t just talk out of their arses, but from experience, on stage, in studios. Alan was a good bloke, he knew the style of music I played, and every so often would call me when he came across a guitar that he thought would interest me. Today, he had a 1964 model; not in the classic ‘sunburst’ finish; but what Fender referred to as ‘sonic blue’; the same colour that John Lennon and George Harrison had used on ‘Ticket to Ride’. The body was ash, a ‘C’ shaped neck with rosewood fingerboard. The electronics had been overhauled a few years previously, and had the original three-position selector switch replaced with a five position one.

Alan showed me the guitar; he already had it connected up to one of the Marshall heads that I was interested in. It looked in pretty good condition, no scratches or dings on the body; the neck was smooth, and all of the inlays were still where they should be.

“Give it a whirl,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to crank that amp up, there’s not all that many other people around.”

I checked the tuning, and played the intro to ‘Before you Accuse Me’. I liked the tone, I switched between the various pickups, I couldn’t hear any hum coming through them. It felt good in my hands, more importantly, it sounded good through the amp. I then changed to playing a rhythm style, like I would for Garry’s ‘big bottom blues’.

“Feels good; it needs a little more finger pressure to make the notes clear,” I said.

“I’ve set the action a little higher than normal,” Alan said. “If you don’t like it, I can drop it down a touch.”

“No, it’s good, I like how I can bend notes easier; it’s just different from how my others are set up.”

“So, what do you think of the amp?” he asked.

“Sounds good, let me have a closer look.”

He explained the function of the front panel controls, and how I could connect this in parallel with my existing Marshall head. He explained how I could connect each amp to multiple cabinets, not that we really needed that. There usually wasn’t room on the stage for more speaker cabinets, anyway.

“You run your amps directly into the PA system, don’t you?” he asked. “Not much point having extra amps and speakers cluttering up the stage. You know you can get empty speaker cabinets just for show; for those bands that want to have a wall of amps behind them, to make people think they are totally badass. But it’s all just for show, half of the cabinets don’t have anything in them!”

“Really? I bet the roadies must prefer the empty cabinets though!”

“Now, what’s your existing amp; is that a model 1959? I guess you have the two 4 x 12 cabinets, in a ‘full stack’. Now, you can keep those with the new amp, too, unless you want to replace them.”

I decided to purchase the sonic blue Strat, plus the JCM 800. I then visited the keyboard section, Chris Davis wanted to show me a new Yamaha synthesizer, the model DX7. I was impressed by the variety of sounds it could produce, but Chris warned me that it wasn’t all that easy to program and set up sounds. I was interested in it; once this week’s gigs were over with, I would see about playing around with it. I told him to put one on hold for me, and returned home with the new guitar and amp.

Back in the studio I replaced my old Marshall amp with the new one; and tried out the new guitar. It didn’t take all that long for my fingers to adapt to the slightly higher action, and I liked the combination of pickups on it; it had a slightly ‘crunchier’ sound than my other two guitars. Maybe the pickups had a slightly higher output, or something; but it was easier to drive the amp into overdrive with it. Maybe one day, I would own something other than a Stratocaster, but not at the moment. I knew Garry would tease me about it, telling me I needed to ‘broaden my musical horizons’, and ‘step out of my comfort zone’. My response to him would be I would change to a Gibson guitar when he went out with a guy for the first time, I knew that would shut him up. Besides, he had started out with a Strat, but somewhere along the way had given in to the dark side.

Just before lunchtime everyone arrived for the session; I was pleased to see Jimmy was with the rest of the guys from Chisel. We rearranged the equipment in the studio, making room for everyone. Of course, everyone noticed my new amp and guitar, Mossy asked if he could have a look at it.

“Where did you get it?” he asked, and I told him I had been in Venue Music earlier that morning.

“Nice, looks real sharp. Did Alan put that aside for you?” he asked.

I then asked Don what he thought about the Yamaha synth; he said that once you learn how to program the sounds, it’s not too bad.

“Doesn’t have the same keyboard touch and feel as a proper keyboard though,” he said.

“I’m thinking of getting one myself,” Bjarne Olin, keyboard player for the Dyvinyls said. “They have their place, it’s not a toy, like some of the cheaper synths.”

Lunch arrived, Mary Beth had arranged for a number of pizzas to be delivered from the shop in Longueville Road; we set out the benches in the back yard, sat down to eat.

“What’s with the fucking pineapple on a pizza?” Mark complained. “That’s just wrong!”

“If you don’t like it, then don’t eat that. I’m sure someone else will have some,” Chrissy said.

We sat around the tables, eating our pizza, laughing and joking; eventually we decided it was time for rehearsal. Mary Beth managed to keep all of us focused, we had a very productive afternoon, and things were starting to sound pretty good. The others were quite impressed with the work being done at the back of the studio, converting the old hay loft into bedrooms; this week we certainly could have used another five or six rooms, if they were available. But Chris, Phil and their crew were making steady progress, even with us working in the studio. They were continuing with the painting, and apologies for those who would be staying overnight that there would be the smell of paint; they hoped that it would be dry by later in the evening, but the odour would still be around. The plumbers were still working on the bathroom, connecting up the toilet and shower drain to the sewer pipe; there was still a day or two before they would be complete.

We wrapped up the session just after 5:00; the other two groups would be back tomorrow afternoon for more rehearsing. After dinner the rest of us were back in the studio working on our set; we felt we had things pretty much down right. We called it a night around 9:30, it had been a long day playing and singing; but my voice was still holding up.

“With all of the rehearsing, and everyone else around, it doesn’t give the opportunity for Ange and me to get together,” Lisa said once we were in bed. “I spoke to her just before dinner, and she was very keen for us to continue on what we had been doing.”

“All that waiting is going to build up the anticipation, for both of you,” I replied.

“Anticipation? Damn, already I want to see, feel and taste her pussy!” Lisa said. “I guess I’ll just have to be content with making love with you.”

“Nice to know I’m a reasonable fall back,” I said, smiling. “Maybe you need to lie on your back, and spread your legs for me.”

“You know you’re not my second choice here ... it’s just I’ve been so excited to be with Ange, and now that she’s actually ready ... the waiting is so hard. But I think I’ve found something else that is hard...”

“Now maybe you should stop talking, and suck on that hard thing, while I lick you and get you ready...”

I buried my face between her thighs, licking her moist pussy while she sucked and licked on my prick. As soon as she was wet enough, I turned around, and slowly slid into her. We made love slowly, gently, then curled up together, and fell asleep.

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty much repetitions of Monday; sleeping in until mid-morning before starting the afternoon group rehearsal. The evenings we spent an hour or slightly more going through our set before talking about future songs. Having Stewie, Tracie, Garry, Jenny and Allison staying over in the new bedrooms made things far easier for them, they didn’t have to drive back across town to their respective places.

We kicked around some thoughts for some new songs that various people had ideas on, these would form the nucleus of our next album. Once we had this gig out of the way, we would start work on the new album and the songs for it. The first thing to resolve would be whether we wanted a ‘theme’ for the album; Phil suggested working on the ‘Old Time Rock and Roll’ concept; maybe getting back to some classic rock and roll style music.

“No chance to play with that synth if you get it, Will,” Paul said. “Just good honest guitars, drums, and backing.”

Wednesday night I spent time checking all of my equipment; making sure all of the guitar strings were in good condition, I checked the pots and connectors, made sure there was no dirt or anything else that would interfere with the sound. I made sure the leads were all in good condition, where the cable was joined to the plug I made sure there was no fraying or damage to the insulation. Everything seemed to be in order; I made a list of everything I would need; I didn’t want to be in the middle of setting things up only to find something important had been left home. The final task was to review my set list ‘cheat sheets’; the notes I kept for each song, so I wouldn’t forget chords, words, or who was playing what section.

Thursday morning, we loaded our equipment into the trailer and drove across to Darling Harbour. As soon as we walked into the Entertainment Centre, I was amazed at the size of the place; it was a HUGE cavern, with seating around three sides. The riggers had already finished their work; I could see the lighting gantries above the stage. There were at least three rows of floodlights, several banks in each row, spotlights, and lights down each side of the rigging. Lisa had mentioned something about how she and Chris would have to program the lighting controller; they would set up sequences that they could call up with the touch of a few buttons. They would prepare a ‘running sheet’ for every song, indicating to them what lighting setting would be called up at each point in the song. Until now, I had never realized just how complicated and involved running the lighting desk was; it was clearly more than just operating a few dimmers. They would have their work cut out for them, and I had a completely new level of respect for how Lisa had picked up the skills fairly quickly.

Ange stood next to me at the edge of the stage, looking out at the vastness of the hall.

“Fuck, this place is HUGE!” she said. “How many people can it seat?”

“About fifteen thousand, I think. This is the largest venue I’ve ever played!” I replied.

“It’s a little bit intimidating,” she said. “This is nothing like the places we’ve played at, at least not while I’ve been with you.”

“Just wait until we start playing; the energy from the audience will be huge,” I said. “I think the largest indoor venue I’ve played would be the Hordern Pavilion at the showground; that’s maybe half the capacity of this place.”

We moved off the stage while the roadies were moving equipment around.

Off to one side was the audio patch panel, Mary Beth, Chris and Lisa were there, along with some assistant electricians. They were making sure the microphone leads were run and terminated correctly, along with the radio microphone receivers and their power supply.

“We’ll be ready for a sound check in about thirty minutes,” Mary Beth said. “We want to have all three groups set up how it will be for the final set.”

The roadies had moved all of our equipment onto the stage; I checked the position of my keyboards and amps; made sure the pedalboard was properly connected and ran the cables from that to the input jacks and the effect loop sockets. Once I was happy with where everything was, and everyone else was on the stage, we were in Mary Beth’s hands; each of us in turn played or sang, levels were adjusted, the position of spotlights were set, and some of the foldback wedge speakers were adjusted slightly, so we could better hear the sound.

Then we worked through the final set from first song to the planned encore; we would have to stop every couple of minutes, repeat what we had done as the sound or lighting people made some changes, and they had us go over that piece again. Once that set was completed, we all worked through each of the individual sets; the stage crew moved things around, our equipment was moved to one side, Chisel’s to the other, and the Dyvinyls was rearranged on the stage. While they worked through their set, I went to the control room to see how they were preparing for each song. Chris and Lisa were working on what they called ‘running sheets’; basically, that told them at every time interval through each song, what lights would come up, what would be faded out, what effects they would start or stop. It was almost like the way a conductor would lead a large orchestra through a symphony, or something like that.

Mary Beth also had something similar but nowhere near as complex; the only extra equipment that we had over what would normally be used in our gigs were a bank of graphic equalizers. Of course the power levels for the front-of-house system was much more than we would have for a gig at the Enmore Theatre, for example. But it was the lighting system that fascinated me; Chris said that in the setup here there were over three hundred actual luminaires that could be connected into multiple banks. As well, there were five individual spotlights, each of which was steerable from the console. Aiming, intensity and spot size were all controlled from a panel that looked like it had come out of a ‘Star Trek’ set. From her positon in the control booth, Lisa could see the stage, and control each one of the spotlights from her console.

Chris was in the middle of programming the main lighting controllers; he would allocate a number of individual lights to a particular ‘bank’, and then assign one or more banks to a set of operations – fade up, fade out, whatever he wanted it to do – which could be controlled from a single button.

“We do all the hard work now,” he said, “so that during the show, all we have to do is follow the directions on our running sheet.”

The particular lighting effect that would be produced at any one time was determined in conjunction with each group and the event stage designer. Chris had a good idea of what combination of lights, at what levels would look best, and convey the effect that people were looking for. I kept behind him and Lisa, watching what they were doing; they were in constant communication with Mary Beth and the guys on the stage; Mary Beth would tell one person to play a bit louder, or have the microphone closer to their mouth. Chris asked for slight changes in peoples’ position on the stage, so they were under certain sets of lights. I never realized that setting up the sound and lighting was so complicated; but the setup here was much bigger than anywhere else we had played.

Soon, it was time for us to go through our set; we didn’t have to tell Chris or Lisa what sort of lighting effects we wanted; it would be much like our regular gigs. We were starting our set with ‘Time is Tight’; the main different with the lighting was having more than two spotlights; she was able to bring up a spots on Andrew, Bruce, and the horn section as well as ones on Phil and me. The rest of the set went pretty much as usual; there were a few pauses while Chris would try something different with the lights, or for Lisa to get a spotlight correct. With our set out of the way, the stage was rearranged for Chisel.

Time to find some food for lunch, and relax before the gig would start. We walked across the main part of Darling Harbour to ‘The Pumphouse’ Tavern, and ordered some lunch. The fish and chips was particularly good; probably fresh this morning from the Sydney Fish Markets. They had their own craft beer on tap, too; I had one glass, a middy, of their ‘Pumphouse Indian Pale Ale’. The beer was quite refreshing, and a change from the usual VB that I would normally drink. Back at the Entertainment Centre, we found some rooms backstage, I decided to try to snooze, take a nap before the evening’s performance.

There weren’t any bedrooms, as such, but I managed to find one room where I could lie down on a sofa, turn the lights off, and try to sleep. I did drop off to sleep, at least for a short time, until the door opened, and the lights were turned on. It was Lisa and Ange, looking for a room.

“Oh, sorry, we didn’t know you were in here, Will,” Lisa said. “We were just ... just looking for a place to be alone.”

“Yeah, sorry, we’ll leave you to sleep,” Ange said, as they backed out of the room.

They had left the room before I full realized what they were planning; I was tempted to call them back, to say they could use this room while I dozed, but then I thought Ange might prefer just to be alone with Lisa for the first time they did that. I was sure they would be able to find another room in the backstage area. I slept fitfully through most of the afternoon; waking in time to have a shave and shower to properly refresh myself. I found where everyone else was; and was subjected to some good-natured ribbing for sleeping through most of the afternoon. At least I wouldn’t be exhausted by the end of the show.

Dinner was provided around 7:00 p.m.; after we had eaten it was just a case of waiting until things started at 8:00. I had a brief chat with Lisa, before she had to head up to the control room; she and Ange had managed to find a private room to fool around for most of the afternoon.

“She got to have her first orgasm that another person had given her; well, several orgasms,” Lisa admitted. “Fingers, lips, tongue; and her ‘chocolate nectar’ is very tasty. She was hesitant at first to reciprocate on me, but she quickly got the hang of things; and she is VERY good at giving oral.”

“So, you think she’s getting close to the time when the three of us could get together?” I asked.

“Very close; she wants to do a lot more of what we did today, maybe tomorrow.”

“Maybe we can talk about how it went later tonight, when we are home in bed,” I suggested.

“Sounds good, I’ll see you a bit later, I have to get up to the control room now,” she said.

I was just about to get changed into my stage clothing, when one of the security guy escorted Merry into the room.

“Will! This looks like a HUGE show,” she said, as she gave me a hug and a brief kiss on the cheek.

“Great to see you, Merry. Are you enjoying the break?”

“Yeah, been boring so far, but I’m really looking forward to seeing this tonight.”

“Did you want to watch from the control room, where Lisa, Mary Beth and Chris are operating stuff from? I’ll take you there now; things should be starting in about fifteen minutes.”

“Sure, but ... do you think I could have a kiss; I mean a nice, proper kiss first?”

I took her by the hand, and led her out into the corridor, and then to the room where I had napped during the afternoon.

“I can’t help it, I really love our kisses,” she whispered, flicking the tip of her tongue around her lips, moistening them.

I put my arms around her, pulling her close to me, and I felt her hands on my biceps. Our lips moved close, and then she just brushed her lips across mine, I felt those familiar tiny jolts of electricity flowing from her lips to mine. Then she pulled my body hard against hers, she mashed her lips onto mine. I felt her tongue pushing against my lips, and when I parted them, her tongue was in my mouth, seeking my tongue. Her body seemed to meld into mine, and she took one of my hands in hers, and pushed it up inside her top, against her bra. I could feel her hard, erect nipple, and I rubbed my fingers over it.

“Next time, I want to be braless,” she panted. “And I’ll pull my top up, and let you suck them.”

“I will love that,” I whispered back.

We kissed for a few more minutes, I could feel her grinding her groin against me, when I finally said that I should get her up to the control room before things started.

“You mean before we can’t stop,” she said, laughing. “That time will come, I hope.”

“We will both come,” I said, making her laugh.

“You are so bad!” she said. “But I hope that will happen, and not just once, but several times.”

I led her up to the control room, leaving her in the capable hands of Lisa and Mary Beth.

“I’ll see you after our set,” I said. “I’ll come up and see how things are going.”

Back down at the side of the stage, the stage crew were making the last minute adjustments to the Dyvinyls setup; they were waiting there in the wings.

“Get out there and kill them!” I said to Chrissy and Mark. “But not too good, I don’t want you to make our job too tough following you!”

“Hah! No chance of that,” Mark said. “You always slay the crowd. If anyone should be worried, it’s the guys in Chisel!”

“Catch you after your set, Will,” Chrissy said, kissing my on the cheeks.

I snuck a quick peek out into the audience; the auditorium was almost full of people; I had been told that at capacity, the arena would hold over 13,000 people. The house lights were still on; the last few stragglers were making their way to their seats. The area right at the front of the stage was clear of seats, I’m sure once the show started, that would be packed with a sweaty mass of people, all crammed in listening, dancing, jumping up and down.

They started their set with ‘Siren’, as usual, they blew the crowd away, particularly when Chrissy dumped the jug of water over her head. As I watched her from the side of the stage, my mind recalled some of the times that she and I spent in bed making love, or showering together. Ange brought me back to the present, pulling my arm and suggesting we watch from the upstairs control room. We climbed the stairs, and took the passage above the auditorium to the control room. We stood at the back; still with a great view of the stage; we could see Mary Beth, Chris and Lisa operating the consoles. Merry was there, working with Chris and Lisa, turning the pages of their lighting running sheets, and starting the timer at the beginning of each song.

The stage setting looked impressive; Chris and Lisa were doing a great job on the lighting, and the sound was superb. I could hear each person clearly, and ever though the sound in the control booth was from a separate set of monitor speakers, I was sure the sound in the main auditorium was spectacular. We watched most of their set from up there; and when it was close to the time for their set to finish, Ange and I went back downstairs. We waited for the stage crew to move our equipment into place, and with the stage lights off, we made our way to our instruments. I made a quick check; everything had been connected properly; while we were waiting for the cue to start, Lisa had the spotlights playing over the audience. I finally had an appreciation of just how large the venue was, how many people were out there watching and listening. Sure, when we had the rehearsal earlier, I could see the size of the place, but now, seeing all the people, hearing the roar, it really struck home.

Time to start; the spotlight moved onto me, and I played the opening chords of ‘Time is Tight’. Phil joined in, Lisa moved another spot to light him up. Soon, we were all playing, the lighting effects were amazing; the sound absolutely fantastic. A quick segue into ‘Good Times’, and this was where the wireless connection for my guitar really showed how great it was. With the large stage; I could move all the way from one side to the other; during an instrumental break, Phil and I moved together, I was maybe a foot behind him, mirroring his moves. We could never have done that before, one or both of us would have got tangled in our leads.

We continued on with the set, ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’, ‘Midnight Hour’, ‘Tulsa Time’, ‘Before You Accuse Me’, ‘Crossroad Blues’ and several others. We finished our set with ‘Bobby McGee’, Allison leaving everyone screaming for more. As we headed off the stage, the guys from Chisel were waiting to take our places.

“Great set, guys, you killed it!” Jimmy said, high fiving us.

The others stood around the side, watching Chisel set up, while Ange and I went back up to the control room.

“That was really great,” Merry said to me. “You blew everyone away, right from the opening track!”

“That was great, the way you could move about the stage,” Lisa said.

“One of the best things we got for you, those wireless connections,” Mary Beth said. “That made your performance come alive, having you all move around on the stage!”

Chisel started their set; they sounded pretty good. About half way through, Chris pulled down all the stage lights, there was just a spot on Don; he played some chords on his piano. Lisa brought up the spot on Ian, he backed up with some random chords. After a little while, a tune appeared in what he was playing, it was Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘Georgia on my Mind’. Ian started singing, it sent shivers down my spine. The two of them; piano and guitar, Ian’s voice; simplicity, and pure emotion. The crowd was silent, they were probably just as stunned as I was. When he finished, the crowd erupted.

“That,” I said, “was something amazing. I’ve never heard a song sung with more emotion. I am in awe of those two.”

“Have you ever thought of singing something like that?” Merry asked me.

“I have sung that style of stuff before, but not as good as Ian did just then.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Will, you are just as good as he is,” Mary Beth said. “And more versatile, too.”

“I try not to compare myself to others,” I said.

As they were finishing up their set, we headed back downstairs to the side of the stage, ready for the final, combined set. I watched as the stage crew moved everything into position; Chrissy came over to me, put an arm around my shoulder.

“Ready to perform with me, Will?” she asked, whispering into my ear.

“I’m always ready for you, Chrissy,” I whispered back. This should be a lot of fun, singing with her again.

We moved out onto the stage; Chrissy and I stood at our microphone, and waited for Phil and Mark to start the introduction. I could hear Phil count us in; they hit the opening riff. A quick smile for Chrissy, and it was into the song. She had her an arm around my waist, and my arm was over her shoulders, each time we would sing “I’ll make you happy” she would squeeze her hand on my side. I loved singing on stage with her; it was then straight into ‘Boys in Town’, another good, high energy one.

When we finished the opening song, I moved back to my Rhodes, waiting for Don to start the intro to ‘Bow Rover’. Then it was back to playing guitar for ‘Rising Sun’, Barnsey really let loose on the vocals for that. We calmed things down with ‘Fast Woman on a Slow Train’, ‘Midnight Hour’, and finally Allison took us home with ‘Nutbush’, with Jimmy singing with her. As the stage lights dimmed, I sat back at the Rhodes; took a long drink of water. My voice was starting to feel the effects of all the singing; just the final song to go.

The house lights hadn’t been brought up, so the audience was probably anticipating more; when the spotlight started to come up on me, there was a cheer, some applause. I started the opening, the broken chords, swallowed and made sure the microphone was positioned correctly before I started to sing.

Now the seats are all empty
Let the roadies take the stage
Pack it up and tear it down
They’re the first to come and the last to leave
Working for that minimum wage
They’ll set it up in another town

I looked out into the arena; people were standing still, silently, listening to me. After the second verse, Phil and Mark combined with their guitars, they both got a tone that sounded almost like a slide guitar. Soon, others joined in; I could hear the rhythm from four sets of drums, Don added his organ, the horns joined in. Chrissy slid onto my bench, next to me, ready to accompany me when we shifted to ‘Stay’.