Text: Life in a Rock Band

I had performed in some terrible venues before, but this small hotel was the worst yet. Playing in a small rock band in Far North QLD hadn’t exactly turned out the way I imagined it. I had expected adoring fans cueing up for entry, wall to wall packed hotels, lots of young girls dancing and reaching out to touch my jeans as I stood at the edge of the stage while singing their favorite songs. Nope, sadly the reality was far from what I’d imagined. Dave my drummer and I pulled into the small town of Turtle Creek at 4pm.

You can’t miss Turtle Creek Hotel as it’s the only pub in the town, a Town that boasted a population of 50 residents. We were met with stares from the folk sitting at the bar as we began to unload the band gear. Wearing their dirty caps, sleeveless flannelette shits, thongs for footwear, this rough looking bunch mumbled to themselves and giggled as we moved back and forth setting up the stage.

“Dave” I whispered ! “Dave there is NO F@#!EN WAY we’re playing here man! Lets just get back in the car and go!” I said in desperation while looking over my shoulder at these rough looking locals. “ We’ll be right mate! They’ll love us” Dave assured me.. It may have slipped Dave’s mind that the first number on our play list is DANCING QUEEN by ABBA! Even with my vivid imagination, I couldn’t see that toothless old guy sitting at the end of the bar wearing his dirty blue singlet, getting up to buy us drinks in appreciation for us singing “ Lets Hang On, To What we’ve Got, Don’t let go girl we’ve got a lot”.

“Dave if the women in this place are anything like the lady serving at the bar, we’re in REAL TROUBLE MAN!” I said as we sat outside.

“Was that a woman?” Dave asked as he looked back towards the doorway unconvinced that it was a SHE pouring the beer.

“CHECK ONE, TWO, THREE, CHECK CHECK ONE, TWO” blasted out of the speakers as the locals stared at us glumly. The silence couldn’t get any worse I thought..

I strummed the first note on my guitar and Dave joined me on drums as we did our first practice song by the Village People. I just couldn’t understand how none of the locals knew the words to “In the Navy”.. It was pointless walking around the bar with my wireless microphone in my hand, and trying to get the locals to sing the chorus with me I thought, as I ended the song.

The Silence after the song really drove the situation home to me.. We were just as out of place in this town as the Cattle Dog that walked in and sat on the stage during our first number chewing someone’s old boot.

However..

We did perform that night, and after the first 30 minutes, the locals did dance to the 60’s rock, and then the place went wild when we did our 70’s classics, with a record 7 PEOPLE DANCING at one time ( that included the lady in the bar who was rockin' ).