Who is That Girl

Saturday morning saw us all at the local pop radio station in our street clothes. Faith was now clinging to Steve like she didn’t want him to get away again. Of course the subject of the book came up after we had said how happy we were to be here and that the crowd last night was fantastic.

I told the DJ that they had got the title wrong and had missed a golden opportunity. He, of course, asked me what I meant so I said “Well, they called it ‘I was a quasi-queer drummer in Quimble’. If they had called it ‘I was a quasi-queer Queenslander drummer in Quimble’ it would have been a genuine ‘four Q’ book, instead of the load of codswallop it is.”

The DJ laughed and said that he wondered what the author would say at that so I pointed at Steve and said “Why don’t you ask him?” He looked at Steve and did ask him what he thought and Steve gave it to him both barrels. He said that his input was minimal, he had been defamed himself and that the only bits of the book that were genuine were the photos. He then went on to say how it had destroyed his life while the real authors got away with it and that he was truly overjoyed at how we had forgiven him after all this time. Before we left the studio one of the nation-wide legal companies had rung in to offer Steve a no win no cost legal battle with Adrian to get his money owed at least, if not considerable damages. They also offered us a chance to be part of a class action.

We still needed time to get our breath back so spent the rest of the day around the pool. Steve was again slack jawed when he saw Tess and me in our bikinis. We made time to get a cassette player and ran through the four songs that we had recorded in Durban. He was amazed at how different we sounded and I told him that there would be space for him on extra percussion if he wanted to be part of our special album, seeing that the other half of Quamble were all blokes. Saturday evening we played to a packed crowd and I could feel that the Perth fans were building.

Sunday we were taken out to Rottnest Island to pat quokkas for the media. The paper next day had a wonderful picture of Cate, wide eyed, with a quokka while Lesley and I looked on with smiles. It was shown next to a picture of us all on stage in our Goth gear and the comment was made that we were all suffering with a split personality. The radio interview also got some column inches with the comment being made about unscrupulous ghost writers getting away with murder. As the newspaper was also part of a national group I wondered if the articles had been sent interstate.

The Sunday show was really good and on Monday we all flew to Adelaide. The flight only takes a couple of hours and the time difference is minimal so we landed in time for a late lunch after we had been checked in at our hotel. We had been put into the Royal Coach Motel just off the city and it was quite comfortable. The promoter took us all to a restaurant in Glenelg and it was great to be sitting with your meal and see a tram rumble past. We spent some time after lunch having a walk by the sea and relaxing. Later on we were back in the bus to go to one of the local pop radio stations.

Here we had a mixture of questions about what we thought of the country after being away (for half the band) and what we thought of the country having seen it for the first time (for the other half). The topic of the book came up and we told the DJ that we were not going to talk about it as we now had a legal action pending. We were to play at the Entertainment Centre on theTuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so were out and doing the sound check on Tuesday morning, meeting the band who would be opening for us both here and in Melbourne. They were a mixture of Adelaide and Melbourne members and already had a couple of records in the charts so didn’t need any more than the minimum sound check themselves. We were then taken, in the coach, to the Barossa Valley for some wine tasting and lunch. With so many wineries in that region the tour took all afternoon, Algernon and Charlie making the most of the tastings, becoming quite jovial by the time we went back to Adelaide. We had a light meal and got into our stage gear for the show, going in the coach.

The opening band was, as to be expected, a professional performance and after the break we gave it our best as well. I can’t say it was one of our greatest performances but we didn’t let ourselves down. Wednesday morning we were shown the review in the papers which was, if not glowing, was pretty positive. We walked across the parklands into Adelaide City which is another one of those grid-pattern cities. It was very pleasant and we were taken into the Botanic Gardens where we had a lunch at the café there. The show that night was better for us as we were overcoming the feelings of our poorer showing the night before.

Our Thursday was another easy day at our request. I took Cate over to the parklands to play in the playground while Steve and Faith just strolled and talked. It was a good break for everyone and it showed in our last show in Adelaide where we nailed it for a sell-out crowd. Friday we flew the hour or so into Melbourne and were taken straight to the Radisson Hotel next to the Flagstaff Gardens and only a walk to our venue, the Festival Hall in Dudley Street. This one was an older venue that had once been a boxing ring, I believe, and, although it showed its age, still had a good vibe. The roadies were immediately taken over to the hall with our gear as our first show was tonight. We had a little while to settle in until we got the message that we could go for a sound check.

When we were in the café area of the hotel we were approached by one of the staff with a phone in his hand. He asked which one of us was Susie and I put my hand up. He plugged it in next to my seat and lifted the receiver for me. On the other end was Brianna who was in tears. She said that her drummer had broken her ankle playing squash and that they will have to pull out of opening for us. I had a big smile on my face when I asked her if she would accept Steve if he was available. She was taken aback and asked how this could be so I told her of Steves approach to us in Perth and his real shame in being a small part of the book.

She said that she would love to see him if he wanted to play so I asked Steve if he would like to be a drummer again in a Quimble cover band. His face lit up while Faith looked shocked and he said he would do anything to play again. I handed him the phone and said “You need to convince Brianna as she is the guitarist and writer”. To say he was gobsmacked would be minimising it but he gamely took the phone and spent about five minutes apologising to her. In the end we convinced Faith that she would see him again in Sydney and then made arrangements for him to fly to Sydney tomorrow where Brianna would take him under her wing.

That done we were then advised that we could go to the venue for the sound check. We walked to the Hall and did just that, walking back again through the gardens to have our dinner. Once we were dressed and painted for the show we took the coach the two minute journey for our first night in Melbourne. Our opening band was bigger here than in Adelaide so we had a good crowd in for them as well as for our own show. The night went well and we were as good as we could be. Steve was now getting hyper at being around the bands again with the prospect of playing. He was getting worried that he wouldn’t be able to do it properly now and I told him that Briannas’ band did a lot of our early stuff so he should get up to speed pretty quickly. In the morning he was taken off to the airport and Faith came down for breakfast with an unusual walk, much to the amusement of her sisters.

The Saturday we had a radio interview; as well as a session with a newspaper photographer in the Flagstaff Gardens. We made sure that we all dressed nicely but the kicker came when he wanted some homely pictures of us with Cate next to a flowerbed. The Saturday show was really good and the crowd was with us while the Sunday show was even better. Monday morning we flew to Canberra for shows on the Tuesday and Wednesday night at one of the leagues clubs. There was no opening act for this one so we did an extended set that put us on stage for two and a half hours each night. It was a good change from the bigger venues and we had a packed venue both nights with almost as much noise from the crowd as some of the bigger places we had played.

Thursday we flew into Sydney for our shows there. We were to play the Friday through to Monday and then we would fly to Brisbane for Christmas before our shows there. I was getting more worried about meeting my parents than anything else. We were taken to Darling Harbour and our hotel first while the roadies went straight to the venue, the Horden Pavilion in Moore Park, where we had played when we toured as a boy band with a girl on the keyboards. Once we had settled in we had a message from Brianna asking us if we could come over to where Spittool was practising so we gave our coach driver the address and he took us there.

It was an old industrial building and, when we arrived, Brianna rushed out to hug us all with a special hug for Felicity. She was in tears to see us and was also ecstatic that we had sent her Steve. When we went in there was an amazed look on our faces when we saw Steve in a dress. “Well” he said “I said I would do anything to play again so here I am, in another all-girl band.”

Marianne G 2020