Chapter 29: Ch-Ch- Changes

New Year, New Tour

January 1986

With the New Year’s Eve only a few days away, we spent the Saturday afternoon reviewing the set lists for that gig. We had been asked to play for a total of four hours – well, four fifty minute sets, with a ten minute break between them. Then at midnight, we would lead everyone in singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’, then play a final thirty minute set before calling it a night. It was going to be a pretty intense, tiring evening, and right after that we would have to travel to Gosford for the first stop on the January tour.

Starting with the existing sets that we had been using for the current tour, we added some additional songs, some of them covers, some of them Cold Chisel or Divinyls songs, other some of our originals. We felt we had a good mix of songs that would fill the time allotted to us, plus it was always good to play something different, something new. We spent the afternoon going over the new songs that we were adding to the set lists; we would have a rare Sunday rehearsal session to run through the full set list.

Chrissy asked if I would be able to help her move some of her clothes across from her apartment, she would be using the ‘Wattle’ bedroom when she chose to stay here. We hadn’t really worked out any details; since it was only going to be a few nights before we would be away for three weeks on tour. Plenty of time for us to work out what sort of arrangement Chrissy wanted.

In bed that evening, Lisa and I talked about Chrissy’s impending move in with us, our feelings towards her, and how her being with us might change things.

“Do you think she’s having second thoughts about moving in?” Lisa asked. “It seems that she doesn’t want to commit fully to the move. How do you really feel about her, what are the depth of your feelings towards her? Maybe she’s scared, that she loves you too much, and she feels that if she’s living here with you, it might be too real, too close to what she was wanting with her life all along?”

“You might be right,” I replied. “I think she’s still trying to work out what it is she actually wants; I told her that she needs to work that out first, what it is that would make her happy, how she would see her life in five, ten, twenty years’ time, and to make plans to achieve that. She’s probably uncertain of making any major changes at the moment, because she’s still not one hundred percent sure of where she wants to be.”

“Do you think she understands just how you feel about her?”

“We talked about that during the last stage of the tour,” I said. “She knows that I am never going to leave you, not for her, not for anyone else. Despite how I feel about her, and she knows that I love her ... it’s not the same as it is with you.”

“How do you distinguish that feeling between me and the others?” she asked. “I mean – and I’m not being critical here, not in the slightest – but as well as me, and Chrissy, there’s been Merry, Ange, Georgina, Fiona, and maybe Alexa.”

“Well, it’s partially a difference between being ‘in love with’ and ‘loving’ someone,” I said. “The best way I can describe it is how I felt when some of the others have left. I was devastated when Megan and Lori left me; but since then, I mean, Allison is now with Sandra, Mary Beth is with Chris; but that hasn’t left me devastated. Same as when Merry and Ange moved away; I mean, yes, I was sad that they weren’t with us anymore, but...”

“And I missed them too, actually, I really missed sucking and playing with Merry’s tits...” Lisa said, smiling.

“And she loved having those boobs sucked, too,” I continued. “She’s the only person I know who could orgasm from having her tits sucked. But ... sure, I miss them not being here, but it’s not like I’ve felt that my heart has been ripped out of my chest. Same as when Fiona went overseas, I missed her, but...”

“That’s like that thing you were told about the three signs of love,” she said. “The third sign, when the person leaves you. So I guess if we were to split up ... then it would be different?”

“Very different, that would leave me devastated.”

“And yet you’ve told me that if I want to have a baby, you won’t hold on to me,” she said. “You would willingly let me leave you for someone else.”

“Of course. If I love you, how could I force you to stay in a relationship where you are unhappy?”

“Well, I can’t see things ever getting to that stage, so it’s all academic anyway,” she said. “Now, we should enjoy our last night together with just the two of us in our bed, before Chrissy joins us, and before we are on the tour. I want you to make love to me every way possible!”

We took advantage of having the king sized bed to ourselves; it was close to midnight when we finally got to sleep, exhausted.

After a late breakfast, Lisa and I headed over the Chrissy’s apartment; when we knocked on the door, she opened it, letting us in.

“I’ve got most of the stuff I want to take over there packed already,” she said. “There’s not a huge amount, because I’ve already got stuff packed for the tour. Can you take those suitcases down to the car, Will? Lisa, can you help me sort out some underwear?”

I carried the cases out to the car, put them in the back, and laid some of her dresses over the top. Lisa and Chrissy came out with a few more bags, underwear, toiletries, and the like, she made a final check inside, and then we were ready to get back home. When we got back home, I carried all of the cases up to the ‘Wattle’ room, and Lisa helped Chrissy get her clothes organized in the closet. I showed her how to use the phone system, and also the security code to the alarm system, before giving her a copy of the door key.

“My own door key! I feel like I’m part of the household now,” she said.

“Of course you’re part of the household!” I said.

At our rehearsal session, we went through some of the new songs we would be adding to the NYE gig: ‘Science Fiction’ and ‘Siren’ from the Divinyls repertoire, and ‘Cheap Wine’ and ‘Khe Sanh’ from the Chisels. I was a bit apprehensive about singing ‘Khe Sanh’, since it was considered to be an Australian rock music icon, and I wasn’t sure if I could really do it justice.

“You can do it, Will,” Don said. “Are we ready?”

He played the opening notes of the song, I took a quick swig of my water, and readied myself to sing.

I left my heart to the sappers round Khe Sanh
And the soul was sold with my cigarettes to the black market man
I’ve had the Vietnam cold turkey
From the ocean to the Silver City
And it’s only other vets could understand

About the long forgotten dockside guarantees
How there were no V-day heroes in nineteen seventy-three
How we sailed into Sydney Harbor
Saw an old friend but I couldn’t kiss her
She was lined, and I was home to the lucky land

The others joined in; Mossy on guitar, Stewie picked out the harmonica melody.

And she was like so many more from that time on
Their lives were all so empty, till they found their chosen one
And their legs were often open
But their minds were always closed
And their hearts were held in fast suburban chains
And the legal pads were yellow, hours long, pay packets lean
And the telex writers clattered where the gunships once had been
Car parks make me jumpy
And I never stopped the dreams
Or the growing need for speed and Novocaine

So I worked across the country from end to end
Tried to find a place to settle down, where my mixed up life could mend
Held a job on an oil-rig
Flying choppers when I could
Oh but the nightlife nearly drove me round the bend

And I’ve traveled round the world from year to year
And each one found me aimless, one more year the worse for wear
And I’ve been back to South East Asia
But the answer sure ain’t there
But I’m drifting north, to check things out again, yes I am

Well the last plane out of Sydney’s almost gone
And only seven flying hours, and I’ll be landing in Hong Kong
There ain’t nothing like the kisses
From a jaded Chinese princess
I’m gonna hit some Hong Kong mattress all night long

We did the final chorus a second time; I felt I was singing my heart out with it; and when we had finished, everyone applauded me.

“That was a good as Barnsey has ever done it,” Ian said. “You killed it!”

“And that’s without being smashed off your face on vodka!” Don added. “Well done, I think we have to make sure that’s in the encore set as well.”

I had to sit down and rest after singing that, I had another drink of water. Chrissy sat down next to me, put an arm around my shoulders.

“You sang that really, really well,” she said. “I am sure it’s not an easy song to sing, there’s a really high bar to cross, the way Jimmy Barnes sings it. But you made that your own then; it was a treat being there with you as you sang it.”

She turned her face, gave me a quick kiss on the lips, and then went back to the others, no doubt talking about the arrangements for some of her songs. I finished my break, it was back to work going through the other new songs. By the end of the afternoon we felt pretty confident in our sets for Tuesday evening, tomorrow we would do a final, full run through of all the sets, just to make sure we had everything in order.

After dinner, we decided that we should have a special ‘welcome’ for Chrissy, we managed to squeeze all five of us – Chrissy, Lisa, myself, Fiona and Tracy – into our big king size bed. We probably tried every possibly permutation of the five of us, before I, at least, fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. I was woken by Fiona and Chrissy tag-teaming my cock, licking and sucking it back into life, sometime around 7:00 a.m. Neither Lisa nor Tracy were to be left out, and despite having slept well, I was still exhausted when I finally got my shower. At least I could rest for the remainder of the morning before our afternoon rehearsal session.

The truck arrived on Tuesday morning to transport our instruments to the venue for that evening’s gig; once we had made sure everything was loaded securely, we drove across to Victoria Park. The stage setup was pretty much the same as had been used on the tour earlier in the month; at least the sound and lighting controls would be the same. Once our equipment had been set up, we did a quick sound check, everything sounded good. There was nothing for us to do until it was time for the gig to start, another six hours to kill.

An hour or so before things were due to start, the organizers of the event – the FM station Triple M – including the main announcer for the evening, disk jockey Ron E. Sparkes came over to meet with us and talk about what we would be playing. He was interested to hear we would be doing a number of Cold Chisel covers; he asked if we would be doing ‘Khe Sanh’.

“Yeah, Will does a killer job of it,” Don said.

Nothing like having more pressure put onto me! If I could replicate the performance from yesterday, I would be more than happy. Anyway, it was time to get ready, have a light meal, and get dressed into our stage clothes. When we went on stage, I looked out at the crowd, it was enormous, at least double the size that we played to in Canberra. I looked around, everyone seemed ready, Phil gave me a thumbs up, and we started the set. With all the stage lights, it was hard to see out into the crowd, but there seemed to be a big press of people close to the stage, all waving their arms to the music; it looked like they were singing along with us. We finished off the first set, I thought we sounded fairly good; time to take a quick break before the next set.

For the start of the second set – what Garry called ‘the panty soaking set’ – I was at Don’s clavinova, just a single spotlight on me, the rest of the stage lights quite low. I started ‘We’ve Got Tonight’. Just as I was about to start singing, Mike came in with some soft sustained strings on his organ, and as the song progressed the others joined in, soft drums and percussion from Rachel and Bruce, Andrew on bass, until the middle section, when everyone joined in; Allison, Tracy and Chrissy doing the backing vocals, the horns adding to Mike’s organ work. Just like before, many of the audience had turned on their lighters, and there was a vast sea of flickering lights, waving back and forward. The whole scene was very romantic, I looked across towards Chrissy, she seemed to be wiping her eyes, and I felt a lump form in my throat.

Still, no time to rest and think about, it was time for ‘Desperado’ with Allison, she moved to the front of the stage, holding the microphone. I started the intro, looked across at her, and she gave me a broad smile. Once again, we had Mike’s string backing, some soft drums from Bruce, percussion from Rachel, and others adding their own contribution. But it was Allison’s voice – strong, pure, each note perfectly on pitch. I was sure she sang it ever better than Megan had. We continue on with the set, ‘Wonderful Tonight’, Ian’s version of ‘Georgia’, after a few other songs we cranked things up a bit with ‘Treat Her Right’, ‘Midnight Hour’ and ‘Mean Woman Blues’ to end out the set.

Backstage I had a long drink of cold water, and Chrissy came over to speak with me.

“Will, I know you don’t, but every time I listen to you sing ‘We’ve Got Tonight’, I feel that you are singing that just for me,” she said, kissing me softly. “I’m just being silly, but you make me feel all gooey inside, all warm and loving ... I want to just take you up in my arms, and make love to you there on the spot.”

“On the stage, with half of Sydney watching us?”

“Well ... you know what I mean. I’m being stupid, I know, but...”

Time for the third set; we kicked it off with Chrissy singing ‘Science Fiction’, followed by ‘Siren’; for that one, Phil and Ian led off, I sang the first verse until Chrissy came in with the main part of the song, after the customary tipping a big jug of water over her head. This was a song we all enjoyed, we all had a chance to go a bit wild on it. We then played a number of our older ones, before we did ‘Cheap Wine’, ‘Rising Sun’, and ‘Breakfast at Sweethearts’ to close the set out.

“I can tell you, it’s fantastic doing our original songs with a huge band behind us, Don,” Ian said. “What do you think, Chrissy?”

“Oh yeah, it’s amazing,” she said. “Plus I like the variety of music, and being able to sing backup on some of the songs; there’s so much variety, it never gets boring.”

Time for the final ‘pre-midnight’ set; we kicked things off with the usual Stones numbers, then some from the latest album, before ‘Load Out / Stay’. The timing worked fine, it was now a minute to midnight, Mary Beth had connected the Telecom Talking Clock into the audio, and we could hear the count down.

“At the third stroke, it will be twelve midnight, exactly ... beep ... beep ... beep.”

We all cried out ‘happy new year’ through our microphones, then started to play ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Just before I started to play, Chrissy gave me a huge kiss on my lips, it was so passionate that everyone one on stage started to cheer us.

“Just wait until later, Will,” she whispered to me.

After we had sung ‘Auld Lang Syne’, I moved up to the microphone, cleared my throat and was going to announce the next song.

“Welcome to 1986, everyone. This year marks the twenty-fourth anniversary of Australia sending troops to the ill-advised war in Vietnam; over the course of the war, over fifty thousand Australians were involved in it. Now, despite our feelings on Australia’s involvement in that conflict; that decision was made by politicians here and in the US; the way we, as a nation treated the returning soldiers was a blot on our nation’s reputation. Just because the politicians made a bad decision, we should not have taken that out on those who served their country, and either never came back, or returned with terrible physical and mental scars. This song is for all of them, take it away, Don.”

As Don played the opening notes to ‘Khe Sanh’, I could hear a huge roar from the crowd. When I started singing, the crowd was singing along with me; I could hear the sound above the foldback audio. When I finished, I felt emotionally drained, and there was huge sound of cheering and clapping. Don looked at me, gave me a big double thumbs up. No time to rest, though, Chrissy and I launched into ‘Make You Happy’, then it was ‘Bow River’ and ‘Good Times’ to wrap the show up.

Backstage, we were all still hyped up from the performance; Don was congratulating me on my performance of ‘Khe Sanh’, saying it was the best he had heard, Mary Beth, Chris and Lisa came from the control booth, saying how fantastic everything sounded; and said there had been an A/V link to the ABC for their official broadcast, starting with the countdown, and through the whole encore set. The road crew started to unplug and pack up our instruments; later in the day once it was light, they would pull down the whole set, and load it into the trucks for transport to Gosford, the first stop on January’s tour.

Once we had cooled off, it was back home. Tonight – at least what was left of it – would be spent with Chrissy and Lisa; after some wild love-making, it was time to sleep, tomorrow – well, later today, actually – we would be starting to get ready for the North Coast leg of the tour. The road crew would be loading the stage set into the trucks, all we had to do was make sure our clothes and personal items were ready to go into the coach.

When we got up for breakfast, Mary Beth had already got the Sydney Morning Herald, and was reading it at the breakfast table.

“Hey, listen to this, there’s a review of our gig from last night,” she said, pointing to a section of the paper, underneath photos of the fireworks on the Harbour. “There was the usual concert in Victoria Park, this year featuring popular Sydney blues / rock band the Roberttones – actually, the ‘Roberttones and Friends’, along with the usual contingent, they had Ian Moss and Don Walker, ex-Cold Chisel, Chrissy Amphlette, lead singer from the Divinyls, and Mike Frank, keyboard player from the 1970’s blues group Salamon. Stuff about songs we played, crowd size – just over twenty-five thousand, by the way, and here’s something you should like, Will. The highlight of the show, at least to this writer, was a spine-tingling cover of Cold Chisel’s ‘Khe Sanh’, after some thoughtful and poignant words from lead singer Will Morris.”

“Poignant and thoughtful? My God, who comes up with those words?” I said.

“Trained journalists,” Mary Beth said. “Now listen ... Rarely does any other group play that song as well as the original, but Morris was as good – if not better – than Jimmy Barnes. In fact, the whole group was very polished, an excellent, tight performance from start to finish. The crowd were on their feet singing and dancing from the opening number; the group had been polishing their performance earlier in December on a tour of the southern part of the State, and are about to continue their tour up the North Coast, prior to a five night booking at the Entertainment Centre in late February. That should be one of the top musical events of the year, if you haven’t got your tickets yet, get them now before they sell out.

“That’s a pretty good review, I’m sure our gigs at the Ent Cent will be sold out,” she said, putting the paper down. “They might even have to go to a sixth night, if there’s the demand for extra tickets.”

Later that afternoon, Don and Ian arrived, they would be sleeping behind the studio overnight, so they would be here when the coach arrived in the morning.

“I was talking with Jimmy earlier today,” Don said. “He told me he saw the final part of our performance on the TV last night; he was impressed, and told me to tell you that next time he sees you, he’ll have to buy you a beer or two.”

“I was worried he would be pissed off with me,” I said. “Trying to one up him or something.”

“Nah, he’s not like that, well at least when he’s not pissed, drunk off his face,” Ian said. “He likes you, I know he admires your talent.”

“We should change out standard encore set to have ‘Khe Sanh’ as the first song, it really seemed to go down well last night,” Phil said. “Just about damn near everyone in the crowd was singing along!”

“What do you think, Will?” Mary Beth asked me. “Do you think your voice will be able to stand up to that, every night? I don’t want your voice crapping out on us halfway through the tour.”

“I should be fine, I got through last night without any problems, and that was longer by about an hour or more,” I replied.

“Okay, I’ll update our control room running sheets for the sound and lighting desks,” she said. “Everyone in agreement?”

We all thought Phil’s suggestion was a good one; Mary Beth replaced some papers in the binders that held the running instructions for the sound desk and lighting controls, and we were ready for that small change to take effect.

That evening I laid out all of my clothes and personal items that I would need for the next three weeks; I was sure we would have access to a laundry in most of the places, so I would be able to wash my normal clothes. I would also take the new concertina with me, that way we could rehearse for the gig at the Three Weeds, too; we now had a firm date for two nights there, we would be playing there Friday and Saturday nights, before our week at the entertainment centre. Over the next few weeks we would work on the songs we would play, refine them until they were performance ready.

The next three weeks – our North Coast tour – went uneventfully. By now, we were accustomed to the process; at least the arrangements allowed us time to relax and unwind between venues; I appreciated having two full days between each location to let my voice rest and recover. Each town was much like the others; Gosford, Newcastle, Kempsey, Coffs Harbour we played at a local racecourse, sleeping in the tour bus. It was crowded, since as well as the seventeen of us, there were partners – Robyn with Phil, Sally with Paul, Michelle had come along with Garry, Sandra was with Allison, Karen with Mike. Of course, Lisa was with me. The four young kids were there with their parents, which was only to be expected.

The word must have got around about our shows; every night we played to a larger than expected crowd, over fifteen thousand for both nights in Gosford, and closer to twenty thousand each night in Newcastle. The crowds weren’t quite as big in Kempsey, but in Coffs – since we were playing right in the middle of the summer holiday season – all three nights had huge crowds, everyone was really enthusiastic.

It was ‘interesting’ having all of us, plus the four toddlers in the bus; I managed to get the bunks organized so that Fiona, Chrissy, Lisa and I had the four bunks at the very back of the coach. At least our nocturnal activities weren’t too obvious to everyone else, as we were relatively private in the area at the back. Of course, considering all we had to sleep on were the narrow bunks, which were a squeeze even to get two people in them at the same time. We worked out a way for each of the girls to sleep with me; it was a rather informal arrangement where in the evening, whoever wanted to spend some part of the night with me would say so. Usually, Lisa would be in my bunk from when we went to bed until sometime in the middle of the night, when a switch would be made, and I would spend the remainder of the night with either Fiona, Chrissy, or on the odd occasion, Tracy.

It was just after lunchtime on our last day in Coffs Harbour, we were all sitting around the common room in the amenities trailer, joking and wondering what the crowd size would be at the next, and final location. Just how many people were there up around Byron Bay who would want to attend, anyway?

“Aren’t they all hippies up there?” Karen asked. “Escapees from the communes around Nimbin?”

“I guess there could be quite a few people coming down from the Gold Coast, in Queensland, Coolangatta, Tweed Heads, that area,” Bruce suggested.

We were interrupted by the sounds of crying, from Mandy and Bruce’s baby. Debbie had woken up, and as was usually the case, was hungry. Mandy headed back to where she had put the crib, and returned with the baby. She uncovered one breast, and Debbie started to feed, hungrily. I had to admit, they made the perfect image of ‘mother and child’, Mandy had always been on the slightly ‘larger’ size – the term that came to my mind was ‘rubenesque’; she and Andrew were a contrast, he was tall and slender, she was the opposite. But seeing her there, breast feeding her daughter, she looked very relaxed.

“Something you have to look forward to, Karen,” Mandy said. “Every four hours, she wants the breast.”

“Sounds just like Mike!” Paul said. “Just like all of us guys, actually.”

“Just wait until she starts to get her teeth, Mandy,” Robyn said. “Nursing them quickly loses its attraction when they can bite you!”

“Don’t listen to her, Mandy,” Sally said. “By the time they are teething, they want something more substantial than milk.”

I looked across at Lisa, she seemed a little wistful, and I realized that all this talk of babies and breast feeding was something that she would never be able to experience. I reached over, held her hand and gave it a soft squeeze; she looked at me and smiled back. I leant over close to her, and whispered ‘sorry’ in her ear.

“Don’t be sorry, it’s all good,” she whispered back. “I’ve come to terms with our life, we are fine.”

We decided to leave the others to their discussions on babies, breast feeding, and the ideal time to wean them, and headed back to the main coach, to get to bed – well, to make love, anyway. With everyone in the main sitting area, we pretty much had the coach to ourselves, at least for a few hours before our warm-up ‘jam session’. The final night in Coffs went well; again we had a large crowd, bigger that the original estimate. Coffs was probably my favourite place to play on the North Coast; usually we were up at the ‘Hoey Moey’, with a large crowd of holiday makers. On the coach trip the next afternoon as we headed up to the next location, we discussed how we felt the larger outdoor gigs were going.

“We’ve been really lucky,” Mike said, “that none of the shows have been rained out. I would worry when the afternoon storms would roll in, but they would be gone in an hour, and the sun would dry things out in time for the show.”

“Typical sub-tropical summer weather patterns for the North Coast,” Mary Beth said. “At least the roof covering over the stage kept everything dry.”

The two nights at Byron Bay were, to my surprise, had crowds almost as large as the Coffs Harbour gigs; I guess whoever suggested that lots of people would head down from the Gold Coast must have been right. Finally, the tour was over and it was back home to Sydney. Certainly as summer tours went, it wasn’t as exhausting as others, I felt that having time between each location, spending several days in each town before moving on to the next location worked well. I had time to rest my voice and recover after each gig; and while the sleeping facilities were rather cramped, we had stayed in some bad hotels over the years. All we had to do now was prepare for what was going to be a huge show over five nights at the Entertainment Centre. Before that, we had the folk music gig at the Three Weeds, over the last few weeks we had refined the sets for that, and got each song to a pretty good standard. I was now really looking forward to playing there; there was something different with the audience interaction. The small stage, and being very close to the audience, the dancing, it felt far more personal than the large stages we had been playing on for this tour. I guess it reminded me of how my musical career started off, playing at the Mirage, the coffee shop at Newport, and the Terrey Hills hotel.

We were back at Banksia Lodge on the Friday before the Australia Day weekend, once we had unloaded all of our equipment, it was time to relax, and make up to Fred for being away so long. I don’t think he really suffered; knowing what a con artist he was, he had probably spent most of the time we were away sleeping with Desley at the Coleman’s place. Still, that evening we were sitting around the family room, watching TV and talking, and Fred sat on one of the footstools, making sure his back was facing me. I knew I was in his bad books, but I’m sure after I had given him some treats, and brushed him, all would be forgiven.

Saturday afternoon, we all gathered in the studio, talking over how we thought the north coast tour went, and if we needed to make any changes before the series of gigs at the Entertainment Centre. The consensus was we really didn’t need to make any changes; the sets worked well, we had each song to a pretty good standard. The report from Alberts with the latest sales figures were very positive, just under thirty thousand copies sold, and the single was up at number five in the top forty.

“Well, if what George was saying that our style of music is on the way out, being replaced by dancers who can sing, or ‘pretty boy’ bands, it’s a good way to go out,” I said. “If our style of music is falling out of favour, I’ll take those sales figures, and the attendance numbers from our gigs any day.”