Australian rock band, INXS, finished the first leg of their first U.S. tour about a week after they performed at the US Festival in California on May 28, 1983. The band went back to Australia where they had some time off and then did shows in Melbourne and Sydney for the last nine days of July before coming back to the U.S. to perform. They played again in California on August 4, 1983
US Festival
Jackie came out to New Jersey from Chicago to visit us in June. When INXS left, their co-manager, Gary Grant, stayed behind and MMA Management opened an office in New York City in the same building as Atco Records. Atco Records had signed INXS to a record deal in the U.S. in 1982. We didn’t know that Chris Murphy and Gary Grant had done this until the day we walked into the office of Atco Records.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atco_Records
Terri, Jess, Jackie and I went into the city to have fun. We walked into the building where Atco Records was located. We went to Atco Records and asked the receptionist when INXS was coming back to America. She called Gary Grant on the phone, and he came out to meet us. He invited us into his office. I didn’t write about this day in my diary, so I don’t remember anything that was said. I don’t know if we got an answer to the question of when INXS was coming back to America.
Did Gary Grant ask us about ourselves and why we liked the band? Probably. He was there in America to help with relations with their record company, do promotions, and increase their fan base. Gary Grant was sent to New York City by Chris Murphy who became the manager of INXS through MMA Management in March 1980. He brought in Gary Grant as co-manager after a year or so as the INXS tour manager.
Gary Grant gave each of us an INXS promotional poster. The poster was hung on my wall when I met my husband eight years later in 1991. I think I threw out the poster at the same time I threw out the Tropicana juice bottle (internal link) I was married, and we were moving often so I threw some things away. Jess had her poster autographed by all the band members-probably as soon as they returned to America.
Before INXS came back, I went “down the shore” with Terri and Jess one day. Jess brought a boom box and a tape of the first INXS album. The first two INXS albums had not been released in the U.S. at that time, but it was easy to buy imported albums where we lived. Jess bought them and also INXSive which was a compilation album that had We Are The Vegetables and Simple Simon on it. I remember listening to INXS multiple times that day and I liked it, so I was ready to see the band in concert again.
INXS came back to America in August 1983. I didn’t see an INXS show until August 16, 1983, when they played at a club called The Chance in Poughkeepsie, NY-about 60 miles north of Hillsdale, New Jersey.
Terri and Jess saw INXS a couple of times before I did. On August 13, 1983, Terri, Renee (Terri’s younger sister who went to school with my younger brother, Dan), and Jess went to see INXS open for Men at Work at the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia. There is a mention of this in one of Terri’s letters. Jess gave Garry the INXS pillow that she made. They gave the band carnations. There was a photo in a magazine that we think is from backstage and shows their carnations and the pillow. Terri made a photocopy of the photo from the magazine and then wrote a letter to me on the rest of the paper.
I think they also saw INXS play at Toad’s Place in New Haven, Connecticut on August 15, 1983. I surmise that they spoke to the band again and perhaps met Dana there.
On August 16, 1983, Terri or Jess drove us up to Poughkeepsie from New Jersey and we waited outside of The Chance for INXS to arrive for their soundcheck. This was a routine way of doing things by that time. We had done it in May at the Ritz, and we likely did the same thing when Adam Ant had a concert in November 1982. Terri told me in a letter that she got me a ticket for the show at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ on November 20, 1982, and that the plan was to wait for Adam Ant to come for soundcheck to try to meet him. It was a Saturday, so I came from university in Philadelphia, but I don’t remember what happened and I did not write it in my diary.
When INXS arrived, we went inside with the band. I think they let us in because they recognized Terri and Jess already. And my impression was that they were quite friendly and liked to meet their fans. Inside there was a bar and then a section with tables and then the dance floor and then the stage. I bought a screwdriver (vodka and orange juice) at the bar. I was only 18 and the drinking age in New York was 19 but they served me without question. We sat at a table that was behind the table where Kirk Pengilly, Jon Farriss, and Michael Hutchence were sitting. I sat facing their table and the stage. I was minding my own business. Terri and Jess went off to an area on the right that had video games. They either played or watched someone else play.
I sat there with my drink and took a pen from my purse. I amused myself by taking one of the Rockbill magazines that were on all the tables and drawing on it. I liked to draw women’s hairstyles on men’s pictures. Sometimes I also drew on some eyelashes or eyeliner. I also liked to fill in the holes in the printed letters. I was altering Sting’s picture on the cover when Kirk came over. I had given Sting a Fu Manchu mustache and a long, pointed beard and I was coloring in his hair. Kirk asked me what I was doing so I showed him. He said, “Oh, Sting is Chinese now.”
Kirk sat down at my table, and we talked. I talked to him about our car ride up to Poughkeepsie-how long it took, etc. I drew him a crude map to show him where we were in New York and where we had come from in New Jersey. I told him that we had to make a U-turn in the middle of the highway (I guess we had to go back for something we forgot?). Kirk said that the tour bus did that once, but it wasn’t on purpose.
He told me that I looked like I was going to a cricket match. I was wearing a white t-shirt, a denim skirt, white sandals, and a camouflage bucket hat. Terri and Jess came back to the table and apologized for interrupting us. I told them that they were not interrupting. Kirk left our table after a minute. I guess he took my comment to mean that he should go away. Even though Kirk Pengilly was my favorite member of INXS, I wasn’t there to hook up with him or anyone else so my friends were not interrupting.
The band started doing the soundcheck. Garry Gary Beers was up on stage. He was replacing the strings on his bass. He threw the old strings off the stage, and they sat there on the dance floor. Jess said that she wanted to have those strings. Garry Gary was her favorite band member. She felt it was too embarrassing to go get the strings. I did not care what any of them thought of me, so I got up and walked onto the dance floor; picked up the strings and brought them back to the table. I kept one and gave the others to Jess. From then on, we all made jokes about having Garry’s G-string.
One of the memorable events of this soundcheck happened when the other members of the band started scolding Michael, their lead singer. He was not participating in the soundcheck. He was playing around instead. He was refusing to sing. Andrew Farriss said something like, “If you aren’t going to sing then you should have stayed at the hotel.” Others in the band chimed in and said, “yeah, go back to the hotel.” It might have been Tim Farriss and Kirk or maybe all of them. I can’t be sure anymore.
This was probably my first impression of Michael Hutchence as a person, and it wasn’t a good one. He was screwing around instead of taking his job seriously- acting like a child instead of an adult. And I got a close-up look at the band’s dynamic; their interactions with each other. I found it interesting. I was definitely on the band’s side.
After the soundcheck was finished, we left the building to go grab something to eat. When we came back to The Chance, the people working there would not let us back into the building. We had to wait outside until they opened the doors again for the show. The rest of the story will follow in the next post.
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