by Colin Baldwin
February 1975
Monday 3 – Depart Sydney to start “Hush” tour
Thursday 6 – Wodonga
Friday 7 – Albury Tony Rooke left the crew because of a blow up with Brewster. He later cooled off and agreed to stay.
Saturday 8 – Wagga Wagga 1300 people at showgrounds
Sunday 9 – Griffiths So f**kin hot / shithouse gig
Friday 14 – Swan Hill Arrived at venue, no 3Ø power outlet, decided to wire-in myself. Ended up on my arse with melted plyers and screwdriver in my hands. Council electricians were called out to replace the main fuse on the telegraph pole. Woops, took out the entire neighbourhood!
Saturday 15 – Mildura Technical College
Saturday 22 – Ballarat
Sunday 23 – Warnambool Palace Shithouse, poor attendance. The band is starting to lose their audience pull.
Monday 24 – Friday 28 – around Melbourne, sometimes 3 gigs a day. High School show during lunchtime, then load out and in for 8pm show, then load out and in again for midnight show.
March 1975
Tuesday 4 – Up the highway back to Sydney
Friday 7 – Newcastle Civic Theatre Had to chock the legs of the lighting stands to stop them from sliding off stage. Big night, lots of chicks.
Saturday 8 – Curl Curl
Tuesday 11 & Wednesday 12 – 2 nights with “Ike & Tina Turner” at St. George Leagues Club.
Thursday 13 – Flew to Christchurch NZ “Hush” support act for “Wishbone Ash” at army barracks. Brewster got busted for pot.
Friday 14 – Wellington St.James Theatre “Hush” support “Wishbone Ash”. Good gig.
Saturday 15 – Palmerston North University Hush gig. What a dump of a place!
Sunday 16 – Auckland Western Springs “Hush” support “Wishbone Ash”
Wednesday 19 – Auckland Whitehorse Inn “Hush” gig only 20 people
Thursday 20 – Whitehorse Inn & Grannies Only 40 people at Inn.
Friday 21 – Whitehorse Inn & Grannies 90 people at the Inn.
Saturday 22 – Whitehorse Inn & Grannies 90 people again. Brewster slipped something in my drink, spent the night wondering the streets of Auckland very out of it. Almost got beaten up by Mauri’s in a pick-up truck.
Sunday 23 – Auckland Albert Park 5,000 people aTended concert. I’m sick as a dog. We think the Mauri’s turned up.
Monday 24 – Whitehorse Inn 10 people.
Wednesday 26 – arrived in Noumea. Wow, bloody expensive, 240 francs for a bourbon & coke!
Saturday 29 – Noumea Liberty Hall Lots of spunky French chicks!
Sunday 30 – back to Sydney
Monday 31 – start trip across the Nullarbor plains for Perth
April 1975
Tuesday 1 – crossing the Nullarbor We ran out of petrol in the middle of nowhere. After opening the back doors of the truck we realised that the lid of the fuel can had worked loose from the constant bumping of the road and the fuel had spread through our bags of clothes and the equipment! Brewster elected to stay with the truck and instructed T-Rooke and myself to hitchhike up the highway to the next servo or homestead.
At about 8pm we hailed down a road-train and caught a lift about an hour up the road. I remember the road-train driver telling us “just walk up that track a ways and you’ll come across a place that has fuel”. So off we went with torch and can in hand up this pitch-black track. About an hour later we came across a house in the middle of nowhere.
Felt like a scene from a Stephen King novel. Picture this – Australian homestead, amber light in window, kitchen door open with the screen door banging in the breeze, even a dog barking in the distance. Well this certainly gave both Tony and I the shivers. We knocked on the kitchen doorframe for about 10 minutes – but nobody came. We sat in the yard for what seemed like an hour or so trying to figure out what we should do.
We decided to take a look around the rest of the property as our only alternative was to start back down the track to the highway and try and hitch-hike to another place. T-Rooke noticed a fuel pump near a shed.
Please appreciate that both T-Rooke and I were good souls and we would never consider stealing from another person – however, the situation seemed pretty grim, so we decided to fill our can and left some money by the pump.
We arrived back at the highway as the sun began to come up. I was somewhat awe-struck by what was unfolding before my tired eyes. The early morning light started to illuminate what we could not see during the darkness – there was absolutely nothing to see – not even a tree, just dirt and rocks for a far as we could see. We managed to hail down a tour coach and arrived back at the truck to find that sleeping beauty ‘Brewster’ had fallen asleep and had left the truck’s parking lights on, so the battery was flat!
After emptying the meagre contents of the fuel can into the tank, we hailed another road-train and asked the driver to give us a push start.
The Hush truck started up OK and we were on our way some 12 hours after we had run out of fuel. Fortunately we found a servo before the tank ran dry once again. And then, when we tried to open the back doors of the truck to top-up the spare fuel can, we found that the road-train that gave us the push- start, had bent the door bars so badly we could not open the doors.
Well shit does happen! We did free the door open and finally go on our way.
Thursday 3 – arrived Perth and found the motel, knocked on the room Peter Rix was asleep in. After a while Peter opened the door, looked me up and down, then threw the keys on the floor in front of me and closed the door.
I often wonder what he was thinking? Maybe it was “welcome to Perth, road filth”
Friday 4 – Perth
Saturday 5 – Bunbury The cops closed the gig down because the band used rude gestures during the show. Apparently Bunbury is a very religious town?
Monday 7 – Geradlton, spent most of the day getting here.
Tuesday 8 – Geradlton High School, after the gig, Brewster threw a wobbly, so Tony Rooke and I hitchhiked 320 miles back to Perth.
Wednesday 9 – Kewdale
Thursday 10 – Groper
Friday 11 – Raffles Hotel Perth, bought a pizza after the show and got food poisoning.
Saturday 12 – Raffles, Very sick.
Sunday 13 to Thursday 17 -Off sick.
Friday 18 – Top Hat Club, still feeling sick. Managed to do the gig.
Sunday 20 – Boulder Theatre (near Kalgoorlie)
Monday 21 – Put truck on the train for journey to Adelaide.
Tuesday 22 – crossing the Nullarbor, met a young lady called Wendy.
Wednesday 23 – drove to Mt. Gambier
Thursday 24 – Mt. Gambier, great night! This is what the mount girls wrote in my diary… “Lou, Di, Chris, Deidre… The Mount Girls. Contact: Di – flat 9 / 189 Commercial St. Chris – 144 Elizabeth St. Deidre – 1 Truman St. Lou – 6 Edward St. When you come back hunt around for us. Lots of love, us mount girls.”
Saturday 26 – back in Sydney home after 6 weeks on the road – stuffed!
Sunday 27 to Wednesday 30 – gigs in Sydney
May 1975
Thursday 1 – Bathurst
Friday 2 – Mudgee
Saturday 3 – Lithgow, big night with the “Lithgow Leaper”. Geoffrey Schuhkraft joined the band as tour manager.
Sunday 4 – Hordern Pavilion. The movie “Earthquake” had recently been released in cinemas with its ‘sennsurround soundtrack’ that utilised sub-woofer speakers to shake the cinema. I had an idea, what if I used the soundtrack to shake the Hordern Pavilion to imitate the place falling down at the end of the show. We could use flame projectors, smoke machines and material falling from the ceiling over the stage and the band could imitate struggling to get off stage as the crap fell on them.
With the idea approved, we packed several bags full of Styrofoam (painted to look like bricks and mortar) and set off up the backstage ladder whilst AC/DC were half-way through their set. As soon as we climbed onto the ceiling spaces, my assistant misplaced his footing and fell through the ceiling. As he fell, he grabbed a hold of my shirt collar, so I followed him to the stage. He landed on the legs of a lighting stand and I landed on him. The next thing I remember is Grahame ‘Yogi” Harrison asking me if I was all right.
I spent 2 weeks in hospital and 4 weeks in recuperation. The other fellow lost all of his teeth. I missed out on a tour of Queensland on which Phil Burkinshaw took over as lighting man.
Some time in June, I continued with the tour, I’m sure Phil was having way too much fun to hand it back.
September 1975
Wednesday 17 – Boat trip from Melbourne to Burnie Tasmania.
Thursday 18 – Burnie Town Hall 1,000 people, big gig!
Friday 19 – Davenport Town Hall 1,000 people. The floor caved in during the show as a result of people jumping up and down. The next day there were newspaper headlined across Tassie – something about rock band caused damage to the venue in Davenport.
Saturday 20 – Hobart Town Hall 2,300 people, the biggest crowd at a rock concert in 8 years, apparently since Normie Rowe.
Sunday 21 – Launceston 1,100 people
Monday 22 – Launceston day off. We were staying at the Launceston Motor Inn. The crew was billeted into a 2-bedroom apartment at the back of the property. On the other side of the motel fence was a Catholic Ladies Boarding School. Deleted story segment.
Brewster found out that the Kensington Football Club was also staying at the motel, so after a few drinks he decided to go and harass them. After a while, John Swiney and I decided we should go and find out what Brewster was up to. When we arrived at the main motel complex, we found him engaging several people who were standing on a third floor balcony. “Come on you poofters, come down and play” or words to the effect were coming from his mouth, which was about to be shut by a bunch of burly footballers.
Within seconds we were surrounded by angry men wanting to beat the crap out of us. One large man grabbed me by the collar demanding to know if I was a “Hush”. As the footballer was about to knock my lights out, the cops arrived and all was peaceful again, except we were thrown out of the motel for disturbing the peace. Good on yer Brewster! Swiney decided to quit.
Tuesday 23 – With the truck on board the ship, we left Davenport for Melbourne
Wednesday 24 – arrived Melbourne and drove to Mt.Gambier. John Swiney rejoined the crew.
Thursday 25 – Mt. Gambier Kings Theatre. A big night.
Friday 26 – Apollo Stadium Adelaide 1,100 people, good gig but shithouse aTendance.
Saturday 27 – flew back to Sydney
October 1975
Wednesday 1 – flew to Broken Hill / gig at Civic Centre 1200 people. After the show a young lady approached me asking where we were staying. Of course I divulged the information and later thought nothing of it. After midnight there was a knock on our motel door, you could have blown me over, and there she stood in her dressing gown. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.
Thursday 2 – Mildura 1,000 people, shithouse power, 3 x 20amp GPO’s. Slept in a farmhouse that night.
Friday 3 – Renmark 900 people. The vice squad from Adelaide attended the show, something about obscenities again?
Saturday 4 – Swan Hill 1,056 people.
Sunday 5 – Flew home. Rick Lum’s baby died, very sad.
Thursday 9 – start another tour
Friday 10 – Maryborough 900 people
Saturday 13 – Griffiths 700 people
Sunday 14 – rest of tour cancelled, back to Sydney
Wednesday 22 – Bowral, back on the road, 450 people
Thursday 23 – Cooma, taxed 2 Miniset dimmer racks for spares.
Friday 24 – Canberra German Club 800 people>
Saturday 25 – Deacon High School (350 people) & Jinaderra High School (900 people)
Sunday 26 – Goulbourn 900 people
Wednesday 29 – WangaraTa 800 people
Thursday 30 – Albury 1,150 people
Friday 31 – Echuca Theatre 850 people. Electrician wired in 3Ø.
November 1975
Saturday 1 – Wagga Wagga 350 people, ticket price very high at $4.50. Electrician wired in 3Ø.
Sunday 2 – Geelong Palais Theatre 500 people. Little power, electrician wired in. I had a big fight with Rix over who should drive hire car.
Monday 3 – returned to Sydney, resigned from Hush.
Saturday 22 – start John Paul Young tour / Armidale $250 per week for lightshow and me.
Sunday 23 – Narrabri Catholic Hall. Little power, could not use dimmers.
Monday 24 – Inverell Good power 32amp 3Ø outlet.
Tuesday 25 – Moree Great gig, everything ok.
Wednesday 26 – Coonabarrabran
Thursday 27 – Bathurst Town Hall, one gig with Sherbet.
December 1975
Wednesday 3 – Grafton, John Paul Young tour starts again.
Thursday 4 – Warrick
Friday 5 – Murwillumbah Civic, electrician wired in.
Saturday 6 – Lismore Town Hall. The chicks in this town are starved for entertainment!
Sunday 7 – Miami Great Hall (see crew pic below)
Monday 8 – back to Sydney and on to Canberra
Tuesday 9 – Start Buffy Saint-Marie tour / Canberra Theatre
Wednesday 10 – Melbourne Town Hall / Buffy tour. Buffy crew are the most unorganised bunch of f**ck heads to ever walk onto a stage!
Saturday 13 – Adelaide Apollo Stadium / Buffy
Monday 15 – Melbourne Town Hall / Buffy
Tuesday 16 – Stayed at Freeway Gardens motel for a few days. with Ted Mulry Gang, AC/DC & the JPY band. It was wild! There were things that took place that night that I will never forget!
Friday 19 – JPY at Melbourne Music Bowl Great show!
Sunday 21 – Hordern Pavilion / JPY & Sherbet, Jim Murray did a great job with the lights.
That’s all I wrote in my 1975 diary.
This story is dedicated to the many crews that busted their arses for little money and recognition during the seventies and eighties.
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