Sunday afternoon we had an in-store performance at ‘78 records on Hay St. Three hundred youngsters showed up, most of whom were under-eighteens unable to see the Rosemount show. We played them five songs in the peaked-roof & wooden-floored space and then, by my reckoning, we signed four hundred autographs afterwards. I wondered whether puberty is contagious after an hour of autograph-signing as I became increasingly tongue-tied and as nervous about eye contact as any one else there. I want to say, though, that it’s heart-warming the response that YG is getting at the moment and that it’s all very welcome.
Afterwards I discovered how hard it is to find somewhere to eat in Perth on a Sunday afternoon – like Australia in the fifties or so I’ve heard.
At the show, an early eight p.m.’er, we heard from the one of the Rosmeount’s bar staff that the weekend before, Alex Lloyd was seen feverishly releasing his pent-ups by writing LAMO over the YOUTH on our posters. If this isn’t true, and we’ve been mislead, I’m sorry. But it’s quite “lamo” itself if it is true.
The Rosemount was our best show for ages. Cam’s despondency had passed and he danced like he knew everyone was watching. Everyone had good mid-evening hi-jinks. Afterwards, which was at the supreme witching hour of 10pm, the Sleepy Jackson were kind enough to invite us to their Menora Palace for some beer and table-soccer.
The next day came the flight home from Perth, which on other occasions has been excruciatingly endless. This time I filled the five hours by attempting to write the YG press bio – the final record company version of which will end up on-line soon.
I was excited to spot Kate from Big Brother (that’s BB05) across the aisle, a TV-crush of mine. A stewardess on the flight, recognising us as a band, had crouched down to tell us of how she was an old school friend of Powderfinger’s and to secretly give us a few mini-bottles of champagne smuggled down from business-class. I suggested to Cameron that we should send a baby-cham over to Kate. Cameron, never one to procastinate, immediately asked the stewardess to “send one over from that gentleman there”. Well I never. I got so adolescently nervous that I demanded that the champagne would have to be sent from all three of us. But Danny didn’t want that. So poor Kate got no champagne and probably thought that we were all a bunch of drunk pervs.