“Planet Earth” had got to number one in Australia, so EMI announced we were going on a world tour that would begin Down Under and would include Japan, Europe, and America.
We had a wild stopover in Thailand on the way to Sydney, and the journey was a bit of an experience in itself. Including our road crew, there were about twenty-five of us traveling in a group. The record company booked us economy class with an Indian airline. Air travel was a lot less regulated then, and there were actually people trying to cook up meals in the aisle of the plane using little gas camping stoves. During the brief stay in Thailand we were high on excitement, and there was lots of drinking and wild partying. When we finally got to Sydney we were greeted by a great big bear of an Aussie, who picked us up at the airport in a large American car and acted as our minder.
“G’day, I’m Grant Hilton—pleased to meet you boys,” he said, extending his hand like a big paw. He was a six-foot-two-inch stereotypical Aussie.
We soon found out that the local sheilas were just as mad for us as the English girls were, except they were much noisier and were never afraid to get their kit off! Grant was the manager of a little rock-and-roll hangout called Benny’s Bar, where the boys from INXS used to hang out. It was only a tiny venue and it had a little round window set in the front door, which you had to go up to and show your face in order to be let in. We met INXS there on our first night. Simon and Michael Hutchence spent a lot of time together and eventually became good friends. INXS were a young band just like us and they wanted to have fun, so the first thing we decided to do was throw a party out by the beach for our road crew. It was a rock tradition to give them a celebration before the start of a tour.
Someone phoned up a modeling agency, so the beach was crawling with crowds of gorgeous women at the party. There was a trampoline on the sand, and everyone was urging the girls to have a go, shouting, “Come on—it’s for the road crew.” Before we knew it, the girls took off their bikinis, and they were bouncing up and down, topless, on the trampoline while the crew were all openmouthed. We were fast learning that 80 percent of our audience was female, and that kind of raw female energy followed us everywhere. Some of the fans could be incredibly persistent; they would wait outside our hotel and tell us they had never missed a single gig.
We would react by saying, “Fucking hell, how many gigs did you say you had been to? Okay, fifty shows! We’ll let you in for an hour.”
It was a really young hot female audience, and at that age it was a very difficult thing to manage—at times, impossible. Our fans were—and still are—amazingly warm to us and they’d go to great lengths to do something nice. Once, Simon mentioned in an interview that he liked continental chocolates, and suddenly we were sent an avalanche of them. Apart from Roger, who was with Giovanna from the beginning, none of us had serious girlfriends in the very early days, so there used to be a lot of rivalry, particularly between Simon and John, about who got to chat up the best girls.
Being number one in Australia gave things a lot of heat. We were invited onto
Countdown,
the Australian version of
Top of the Pops,
which was presented by a lovable old bloke named Molly Meldrum. He was famous for wearing a big cowboy hat and his catchphrase was “Molly Meldrum loves you lots.” He gave us a massive buildup for weeks on end to promote us, and the tour soon sold out. We’d travel from gig to gig under the blazing sun in a dusty convoy of giant cattle trucks with all the gear stowed in the back, which was open sided.
To celebrate, we went to a party at Molly’s house in Melbourne, and all the Australian cricket team came along. Molly had lots of expensive Egyptian art all around the place and I was amazed it survived the party. On another occasion we went to
We had a wild stopover in Thailand on the way to Sydney, and the journey was a bit of an experience in itself. Including our road crew, there were about twenty-five of us traveling in a group. The record company booked us economy class with an Indian airline. Air travel was a lot less regulated then, and there were actually people trying to cook up meals in the aisle of the plane using little gas camping stoves. During the brief stay in Thailand we were high on excitement, and there was lots of drinking and wild partying. When we finally got to Sydney we were greeted by a great big bear of an Aussie, who picked us up at the airport in a large American car and acted as our minder.
“G’day, I’m Grant Hilton—pleased to meet you boys,” he said, extending his hand like a big paw. He was a six-foot-two-inch stereotypical Aussie.
We soon found out that the local sheilas were just as mad for us as the English girls were, except they were much noisier and were never afraid to get their kit off! Grant was the manager of a little rock-and-roll hangout called Benny’s Bar, where the boys from INXS used to hang out. It was only a tiny venue and it had a little round window set in the front door, which you had to go up to and show your face in order to be let in. We met INXS there on our first night. Simon and Michael Hutchence spent a lot of time together and eventually became good friends. INXS were a young band just like us and they wanted to have fun, so the first thing we decided to do was throw a party out by the beach for our road crew. It was a rock tradition to give them a celebration before the start of a tour.
Someone phoned up a modeling agency, so the beach was crawling with crowds of gorgeous women at the party. There was a trampoline on the sand, and everyone was urging the girls to have a go, shouting, “Come on—it’s for the road crew.” Before we knew it, the girls took off their bikinis, and they were bouncing up and down, topless, on the trampoline while the crew were all openmouthed. We were fast learning that 80 percent of our audience was female, and that kind of raw female energy followed us everywhere. Some of the fans could be incredibly persistent; they would wait outside our hotel and tell us they had never missed a single gig.
We would react by saying, “Fucking hell, how many gigs did you say you had been to? Okay, fifty shows! We’ll let you in for an hour.”
It was a really young hot female audience, and at that age it was a very difficult thing to manage—at times, impossible. Our fans were—and still are—amazingly warm to us and they’d go to great lengths to do something nice. Once, Simon mentioned in an interview that he liked continental chocolates, and suddenly we were sent an avalanche of them. Apart from Roger, who was with Giovanna from the beginning, none of us had serious girlfriends in the very early days, so there used to be a lot of rivalry, particularly between Simon and John, about who got to chat up the best girls.
Being number one in Australia gave things a lot of heat. We were invited onto
Countdown,
the Australian version of
Top of the Pops,
which was presented by a lovable old bloke named Molly Meldrum. He was famous for wearing a big cowboy hat and his catchphrase was “Molly Meldrum loves you lots.” He gave us a massive buildup for weeks on end to promote us, and the tour soon sold out. We’d travel from gig to gig under the blazing sun in a dusty convoy of giant cattle trucks with all the gear stowed in the back, which was open sided.
To celebrate, we went to a party at Molly’s house in Melbourne, and all the Australian cricket team came along. Molly had lots of expensive Egyptian art all around the place and I was amazed it survived the party. On another occasion we went to
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