Sexism, Bruhs, and Rock n Roll

Tag: Chris Murphy

Blog Post 24- INXS plays in Montreal, Canada. August 4, 1984

Montreal, Canada. Michael and Tim of INXS doing an interview. August 4, 1984. Photo taken by Jess.

Recap

Here is quick recap before getting into what happened when we traveled to Montreal from Ottawa City to go to my eleventh INXS concert and my ninth INXS concert since June 28, 1984.

Karen, Kirk Pengilly’s girlfriend, was still on tour with the band so I continued to keep my distance from them as much as possible without appearing rude.

Of course, I had the added task of pretending that nothing had happened with Michael Hutchence either. He had paid some attention to me the day before and demanded a kiss which he didn’t get.

Trip from Ottawa to Montreal

Terri, Jess and I packed our things into the Chevy Suburban and drove to Montreal from Ottawa City which is about a two-hour drive. If we left that Saturday morning at the hotel check-out time, we would have arrived in Montreal shortly after noon.

Screenshot from Google Maps of the drive between Ottawa City, Canada and Montreal, Canada.

INXS stayed at the Hotel du Parc. The hotel no longer exists. McGill University used the land it was on to build a new dormitory.

The location of the Hotel du Parc which no longer exists is marked by the red pin.

We did not book a hotel room for Montreal because we had to get back to New Jersey so I could work my waitressing shift on Sunday night- I was “closing” the restaurant that night. That meant staying until the restaurant closed and then once every customer was gone, I would put the chairs on top of the tables and vacuum the dining room floor. When that was done, I could leave and drive home. The drive from the Emerson Hotel to my mother’s house in Hillsdale was only ten minutes so that part wasn’t hard.

The page from my 1984 pocket-sized appointment book showing July 30 to August 5. INXS concerts and waitressing shifts.

Our arrival at the Hotel du Parc

When we arrived at the Hotel du Parc in Montreal, we parked in the hotel’s parking garage and made our way to the lobby where we planned to hang out for the next several hours.

The first person we saw from INXS was their manager, Chris Murphy. My diary doesn’t say if we spoke to him or said hello or anything. Probably not. It’s likely that we just saw him walking through the lobby while we were sitting on a couch. A lot of times we would just hang out in the same room with these people and just talk to each other and not to them.

Band members appear in the lobby

We were there just in time to see most everyone come down from their rooms. Garry Gary came down so he could go to the hotel swimming pool. Jon Farriss showed up in the lobby wearing nothing but sweatpants so that was a treat for us.

When Gary Grant came down, I asked him to put the three of us on the guest list again for the concert at the Spectrum. I asked him to please use my name this time. The night before we were on the guest list as “Terri, Jess, Plus One” and I didn’t want to be the one with no name again. So, when I asked, I said, “Most of my friends call me Plus One anyway but…can you put my name down on the list?”

Michael ignores Terri but not me

Terri, Jess and I were standing around in the lobby near the back side of the hotel when Michael came down. When he walked by us on his way somewhere else, Terri said, “Hi, Michael” and he kept going like she didn’t even say anything. Then I said, “Hi, Michael” and watched as he stopped, turned around, and walked over to me. It was a bit embarrassing and awkward because I was just saying hello and I didn’t have anything else to say to him when he came over to me. And now it appeared that the lead singer of INXS would come when I called him.

Michael Hutchence validates our parking ticket

Terri saved us from the awkwardness and took advantage of the situation by telling Michael to come with us to the front desk because we needed to have our ticket for the parking garage validated. Michael was a hotel guest, and we were not so he could save us money on the parking fee.

While we walked over, Michael told us some of his observations about Japanese people from his time spent in Japan. I didn’t write any of the specifics about that in my diary so I can’t say what they were or if they were interesting or why that subject would even have come up.

Michael had come down because he and Timmy were scheduled to do an interview for the Radio-Video TV show. From what I can make out from an article in French, it was a music video show on TV in Quebec that ran from January 1982 until September 1985 on TVJQ.

The Wikipedia article in French

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-Vidéo

Michael and Timmy do an interview

The interview was set up to take place on the patio in back of the hotel. By the time Timmy came down to the lobby, it was time for them to start the interview so when he stopped to say hello to us, he gave Terri the sandwich he had in his hand.

We asked if we could come outside and watch the interview, and someone said yes so went out there and watched from a distance as Timmy and Michael sat on white plastic chairs at a white plastic table as you can see in the photo at the top of this post. Michael wore the same clothes that he wore after the concert the night before in Ottawa City.

I tried my best to hear what Timmy and Michael were saying but I was too far away. There doesn’t seem to be any footage of this interview on the internet either.

As I was standing there watching and trying to hear something, some guy had to come up to me and interrupt. He was a waiter and maybe he was just curious or maybe he had some attack of jealousy because a woman was paying attention to those two men who were not him.

When he asked me in English if they were doing a television interview, I turned my head to look at him, put my finger to my mouth, and said “Shhhh.” Instead of being shushed and going away, he asked me the same question again but in French. Since we were in Quebec, perhaps he thought I was a French snob who would only respond to French. I wanted him to go away so I answered, “Oui”, and nothing else.

Michael appeared to be quite nervous while he was doing the interview. He fidgeted in his seat, and he chewed on the side of his thumb. Timmy was cool and collected.

After the interview ended, Terri, Jess and I stayed outside on the patio. If I recall correctly, I think there was a bar and also table service out there. Terri ate the sandwich that Tim had given her. I don’t remember if I ordered some kind of food, but I must have eaten something that day. Maybe Terri shared the sandwich with me, but I don’t remember.

And now the tour bus driver wants me

Randy, the man who drove the tour bus for the band, was outside so the three of us approached him and we all stood around chatting about who knows what for several minutes.

Then Randy decided to say, “Let me buy you girls a drink”, or something like that, and then he turned to me and said, “And then we’ll make love.” Jesus Fucking Christ!! I said, “No” and I don’t think I was polite about it by adding a thank you to that response. At that point, the sexual interest in me was getting ridiculous. My diary says that “I needed Randy like I needed another hole in my head.”

I don’t recall what Randy looked like anymore and I didn’t describe him in my diary. He might have been around six-feet-tall with brown hair and a medium build. (Definitely a white man.) Not bad looking but also not someone I found attractive at all.

An update from Tommy about cocaine

During that day, we saw Tommy again and we got an update about the cocaine situation that we had talked about the day before in Ottawa City. Tommy told us that he and Ronald (the “merch” guy who sold the INXS t-shirts at the concerts) had used three grams of coke since we last saw him just over 24 hours ago.

1980s articles from the New York Times about cocaine.

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/07/us/us-says-use-of-cocaine-rose-sharply-in-84.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/20/nyregion/drug-users-rich-and-poor-tell-of-the-costs-and-the-anguish.html

The newspaper articles from the time suggest that a gram of cocaine cost about $80 in American dollars. That is about the equivalent of $250 in 2026. Cocaine was more expensive in 1984 than it is today. An internet search tells me that a gram of coke averages between $120-$160 today.

When we saw Tommy in Ottawa and he was on his way to buy some cocaine, I wonder how much he bought and if he also bought some for the rest of the crew and the band for the time they would be in Canada? We only know how much he and Ronald used.

Gary Grant

Later on, Gary Grant came down to the lobby and when he saw me, he asked, “How are you doing, Plus One?” And, of course, I liked that because after what I said to him earlier, he was kind of implying that we were friends.

My young friend Naseem

While hanging out in the lobby for many hours before the concert, I also saw regular hotel guests come and go. One was a boy named Naseem. He was maybe ten years old, and he was of South Asian extraction. Naseem is a popular name in Pakistan so maybe his family had roots there.

I spent some time talking with him. If I recall correctly, he came up to me and wanted to know if I was famous. Was I wearing something more flamboyant than what I wore in Ottawa? That outfit was nothing special as people can see in the photos- jeans and an inexpensive tank top with a colorful geometric pattern. Quite 1980s. I have no idea what I was wearing that day in Montreal.

My response was to tell Naseem that I was the lead singer of a band, and the band was called Queen Elizabeth and the Princes. When I signed an autograph for him, I signed Queen Elizabeth on the paper. Then I asked Naseem for his autograph, and he wrote his name on a piece of paper for me. I kept the piece of paper with his autograph for at least ten years and I regret it that I don’t still have it today. He was a lovely boy.

The concert venue

INXS was playing at a club called The Spectrum. The club no longer exists.

Photo of the Spectrum from https://www.vanishingmontreal.com/2010/05/le-spectrum-legendary-music-venue-in.html

A picture of the Spectrum at 968 Rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest in Montreal that I found on the internet.

You can read about it in this article at https://bravewords.com/news/the-spectrum-1982-2007-montreal-venue-goes-out-with-a-bang/

I’m pretty sure Terri, Jess and I walked to the club from the hotel when it was time to go to the concert, but I have no recollection. The club was located at 318 Rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest. It was just a fifteen-minute walk down the street from the hotel.

The location of the Spectrum club where INXS played is marked by the red pin.

The show

The only thing I wrote in my diary about the concert itself was that there was a girl standing next to me who was screaming directly into my ear for most of the show. It was quite unpleasant. It was clear that she was a fan of Kirk Pengilly, and I guess she was trying to get his attention. Maybe we were on his side of the stage for a change.

Catching a ride on the tour bus

After the show, Terri, Jess and I must have waited for INXS somewhere inside or outside of the club, but my diary does not say anything specific. All it says is that we rode on their tour bus from the Spectrum back to the hotel down the road. The ride would have taken about fifteen minutes through the busy downtown area of Montreal.

The front of the tour bus had bench seats that faced each other along both sides of the bus. Up front there was also a cooler or a mini fridge. I can’t recall which. When I got on the bus, I hit my head on the ceiling. During my life I have often hit my head on low ceilings, car door frames, and luggage racks in buses and airplanes.

I didn’t sit next to Michael this time. He was a couple of seats away from me. If I recall correctly, we were between Timmy and Michael and Gary Grant sat across from us. There was also at least one other fan or friend of the band on the bus. She might have been someone from Hong Kong. We didn’t know who she was or find out who she was. It’s in my diary that Michael and Jon said a couple of things to her in Cantonese. Cantonese is the language spoken in Hong Kong.

When we sat down, Gary Grant took out a can of Coke from the cooler or whatever and gave it to me. That was something I appreciated even though I don’t like Coca-Cola and only drink it in circumstances like that one.

INXS didn’t like Quebec, it seemed

The mood on the bus was that INXS could not wait to get out of Quebec. They said things like “Bon Fucking Soir!” and other comments about being glad to get out of Montreal. The French Canadians made a bad impression on them. The French separatist movement was in full swing at that time and French Canadians could be quite militant.

Here are some Wikipedia articles about that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_French_Language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_nationalism

Did Michael really finish the heroin?

Timmy said a strange thing while we were on the bus. I don’t know if it was a joke, and he was fucking with us, or if there was some truth to it. At the time, I don’t think I took it seriously. But it certainly didn’t do anything to dispel the idea that we already had that Michael had drug issues.

Xeroxed photo of INXS used for stationery. This is from 1983.

Timmy declared, “It’s going to be a bad night because we’ve run out of heroin. The bastard (pointing to Michael Hutchence) finished it!”

Now that I know a few more things about the history of INXS and also about Michael’s life, I have to wonder if it was really a joke. Especially after writing this blog post and being reminded that Tommy had made a drug run the day before. Perhaps he had bought an assortment of drugs to tide everyone over while they were in Canada.

This might also explain why Michael did not have any money and would not be able to go out to the club unless he got some money from somewhere.

Michael needs money to go out

When we heard that Michael needed money, Terri, Jess and I were quick to come to the rescue. We checked our pockets and purses and scraped together $50 to lend to Michael.

If it was $50 Canadian, then that would have been $40 in US dollars. All I had on me to give him was $10 in Canadian money. In 2026 US dollars, we loaned Michael the equivalent of $130 to go to the club.

Speaking of Michael, he was saying or doing something that I thought was weird, something I no longer remember. The only thing my diary says is that I said to Michael, “You’re weird!” To which he answered, “Who, moi?” Half French and half English.

Timmy’s pen

The only other thing I wrote about our short time on the tour bus was a funny story that Timmy told us. Timmy’s grandmother was still giving him money for his birthday even though he was grown up. A couple of years earlier, she sent him $25 for his birthday and he used the money to buy a nice pen. I think it was a fountain pen.

It’s my understanding that INXS didn’t go to Japan for the first time as a band until November 1983 when they did the videos for Original Sin and I Send A Message. So, I assume that this was when Jon gave Timmy’s nice pen to a fan.

I think Jon borrowed the pen that Timmy bought with his birthday money to sign autographs and then handed it to a Japanese fan without thinking. Timmy sounded annoyed with Jon that he lost his pen.

The Beat Club

When we arrived at the hotel, we got off the bus and retrieved our car from the parking garage. Then we waited for some of the band to get back on the bus. We had arranged with Gary Grant or maybe Timmy to follow the bus to a place called the Beat Club which was at 968 Rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest.

The location of the Beat Club is marked by the red pin.

Matchbook from the Beat Club in Montreal. Found on the internet.

After we all arrived, I seem to recall going inside the building but that there was another door we had to get through to get inside the actual club. In any case, the whole bunch of us, which I only know for sure was Michael, Timmy, Gary Grant, and the three of us but could have included Jon and Garry too (my diary doesn’t say), were rejected at the door.

Gary Grant gets us in

Michael was upset by this. Was it because he didn’t handle rejection well or was it because it happened in front of me? I don’t know why he was upset but I found his reaction to be very interesting and to be the sort of thing that you would expect from a Prima donna. Many people insist that Michael was never a stereotypical rock star but sometimes he was.

So, here we are at the door. The guy at the door said, “You can’t come in.” Michael said, “Don’t you know who I am?” I just about died hearing that come out of his mouth. Then Michael repeatedly said, “This is bullshit! We’re in INXS.”

The doorman started to believe that there were members of INXS at the door of their club and that’s when Gary Grant stood up for me, Terri and Jess and said, “These girls came all the way from New Jersey to see us, so you have to let them in too.” Gary Grant is my hero.

Now’s the time on Sprockets when we dance!

We all got into the club and, boy, was it a weird place. The people in the club looked like they were from outer space. Obviously, we didn’t look weird enough and maybe that’s why they didn’t want to let us in.

My diary says that “one guy was dancing so bizarrely that it looked like he should get some electro-shock therapy.” It was like the Sprockets skits from Saturday Night Live but far weirder and far more pretentious.

Sprockets Saturday Night Live

Michael offers to buy us a drink

The first thing we did was walk up to the bar which was on the left side of the room. The dance floor was on the right side. Michael offered to buy us drinks with the money we had given him.

Terri and Jess refused because they would be driving. I refused because I was worried I would be sick in the car if I had a drink, and I also didn’t want to feel even more terrible at work the next day because I was already worn out.

There’s no way I could have survived a rock and roll lifestyle of drinking and drugs. Even just staying out late and experiencing too much stimulation would make me nauseous sometimes. My constitution is quite weak and delicate.

But after a while I was bored so I changed my mind. I went over to Michael and said, “I would like you to buy me a drink after all,” so we walked up to the bar and found out that it was too late. They had stopped serving alcohol. That meant it was after 3am which was when clubs in Montreal had to stop serving drinks.

I don’t sound like I’m from New Jersey

Michael and I chatted for a bit. He did not ask me for a kiss or try to be flirty. It was a normal conversation. After listening to me talk he said, “You sound like you’re from South Carolina or Atlanta.” He thought my accent sounded southern and maybe it did. I’m fond of saying y’all and howdy and I definitely don’t have the stereotypical “Joisey” or New York City accent.

Michael also told me that the band had done so much traveling already that they had been around the world eight times. He didn’t mean that they literally had been around the world a bunch of times but that they had traveled so many miles doing shows that it was the equivalent of going around the world.

Eight times is an exaggeration because that would mean that INXS had traveled 1.9 million miles in about six years, and they had only flown to the United States as a band about three times at that point.

The only other thing I wrote in my diary about our conversation was that Michael also had noticed the other people in the club and pointed some of them out to me, saying, “They are so pretentious. They are just pretending to have fun.” I agreed with him.

I also mentioned in my diary that Terri and Timmy had danced with each other. I’m sure Terri was very happy about that. She spent as much time with Timmy as she could. But I think most of the time we were there, Terri, Jess, and I probably spent that time hanging out with each other because that is what we usually did. Probably talking about INXS instead of talking to INXS.

Get these people out!

Sometime between four and five in the morning, some guy started yelling at Gary Grant. He said, “I’m holding you responsible to get these people out. We are closing and you’re responsible for half the people in this place.”

So, we said goodbye to INXS and headed to the Suburban to start the drive back to New Jersey. We put the seats down in the back so I could lie down there and sleep while Terri and Jess drove.

Screenshot from Google Maps of the drive between Montreal, Canada and Hillsdale, NJ.

Brochure for the 1982 Chevrolet Suburban. The back is big enough to sleep in if you fold the seat down.

May 10, 2026
Blog Post 23- INXS plays Barrymore’s in Ottawa City, Canada. August 3, 1984.

Gary Grant, Michael Hutchence, Jon Farriss, and Tim Farriss. My friends believe the carnations in their mouths came from them. Photocopy of a photo from a magazine from 1983.

INXS Calling All Nations: A Fan History of INXS

On October 3, 2023, INXS published a book called “Calling All Nations-A Fan History of INXS.” A portion of my history with INXS is in this book. The book by itself seems to be sold out and only available to buy from eBay and online used bookstores.

The Deluxe package of the Calling All Nations book seems to still be available from the publisher.

Calling All Nations: A Fan History of INXS (Signed Super Deluxe Edition)

Around November 2022, INXS put out on social media that they were looking for stories for the new book.

Screenshot from the official INXS Facebook page from November 2022. Soliciting story submissions from fans for the Calling All Nations book.

I submitted a photo of me and Garry Gary Beers that was taken after this show and I wrote about the show itself. Most of what happened that day did not end up in the book because I already knew by then that my story was not well-received in many INXS circles, so I didn’t tell it all. Too much truth. Too much negativity. Not enough reverence or worship. My contribution is on page 76 in the book.

From Toronto to Ottawa City

It’s about a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Toronto to Ottawa City. Assuming that our check-out time was 11 am and we stopped somewhere for lunch, we would have arrived at our hotel in Ottawa City around 4:30 pm.

Screenshot from Google Maps of the drive between Toronto, Canada and Montreal, Canada.

Barrymore’s Music Hall

https://ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/local-arts/barrymores-ottawas-storied-night-club-now-home-to-a-pot-shop

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrymore%27s

We arrived at Barrymore’s on Bank Street around 5 pm and parked the Suburban in the parking lot across the street from the club on Gilmour Street. No one else was there so we took a walk and looked around.

The location of Barrymore’s club in Ottawa City. It is now a cannabis store. Screenshot from Google Maps.

Garry’s laundry

When we passed by a laundromat, one of us recognized one of Garry Gary’s shirts that he wears onstage. It was tumbling in a dryer. So, there were people who worked for INXS around. Down the street from the club there was a coffee shop. We went in and sat down for a bit.

Tommy needs cocaine

At some point we bumped into Tommy who was either the driver for the band’s equipment or for the roadies, and we chatted with him for a while. I don’t remember what we talked about. What I wrote in my diary was that Tommy had to leave because he needed to buy cocaine. He had to drive to Montreal after the show that night and needed it to stay awake.

Waiting in the parking lot for INXS

Terri, Jess and I walked back to the parking lot to wait for INXS to arrive in their tour bus. There was a man there who was the parking lot attendant, so we chatted with him for a while. We told him about our trip to see INXS in concert for three nights in a row and that we had seen them a bunch of times. He told us we were sick for following them around. That seems to be a common opinion. Maybe we were!

INXS arrives

The INXS tour bus pulled into the parking lot around 6:30 pm. It was still daytime. Sunset wasn’t until 8:30 pm. We were still bored because the band stayed on the bus.

I stood there and looked at the bus, but I could not see inside at all. But then, I saw Chris Murphy, the manager, put his face very close to the window and he looked at me. Then he disappeared and appeared again with a 35mm camera which he held up to the window. He took a photo of me. It wasn’t until recently that I thought anything of it other than, “huh, that was weird.”

Why did Chris Murphy take my photo?

But then the Covid-19 pandemic happened in 2019. I was stuck at home with time to read my diary, and INXS came back into my life in a big way. Since then, I have been trying to understand what happened and I thought about why Chris Murphy would take my photo.

It seems clear that Michael Hutchence was sitting next to the window and looking at me and Michael asked Chris Murphy to take my photo with his camera.

Playing with a baseball bat

I walked away and found something to play with near the attendant’s booth. There was a baseball bat which I picked up, and I twirled it and swung it around. After swinging at a bunch of pitches while pretending to be at bat in the batter’s box like in a major league game, I put it down and picked up the broom that was there.

Michael must have been watching from inside the bus when I put the rounded end of the broomstick on the pad of my index finger. In order to keep the broom balanced on the end of my finger, I had to move my feet around kind of like I was dancing. The broom stayed up for what seemed like a long time.

Michael Hutchence comes over to play

The next thing I knew, Michael Hutchence was off the bus and standing next to us. He wanted to try what I was doing so I gave him the broom. When it turned out that he could balance the broom on his finger as well as I could, I said, “No fair! Your finger is bigger than mine.” I used the side of my body to shove the side of his body. Like I was a hockey player or the bishop from the Monty Python sketch. Pretending to be the bishop was something I did in the halls of my high school.

Monty Python’s The Bishop

It’s impossible to say exactly what happened next. When I wrote in my diary, it was often just a bunch of snippets of detail in no particular order. I’m trying to fit these together into a more cohesive story as best as I can.

More of the band members came off the bus and we found out from one of them that they did not have a hotel. We had a hotel room in town so Jess offered to drive some of them to our hotel so they could use our room, but the offer was declined.

Hanging around with Tim Farriss

The Suburban had a CB radio and a public address loudspeaker. When I was sitting in the front seat of the car, I switched on the PA, picked up the hand mic, and startled Tim Farriss by announcing his name “Tim Farriss” over the public address system while he was standing in the parking lot in front of the car.

That led to Tim wanting to play with the CB radio. The tour bus was equipped with a CB radio too. It was up by the driver’s seat. Jess and Tim figured out a CB radio channel to use and then Tim went into the bus and talked to Jess over the radio. They had fun.

You can see part of the Suburban and the tour bus from this photo that Jess took of Tim and Terri.

Terri and Tim Farriss before the INXS show at Barrymore’s in Ottawa City, Canada. Friday, August 3, 1984. Photo taken by Jess.

Terri and Michael Hutchence

Terri also had her picture taken with Michael. I didn’t buy a copy of that photo because Timmy was her favorite, so I bought the one with her and Timmy instead. Terri called Michael over, “Michael, come take a photo with me!” Michael was trying to be funny and was acting coquettish and like he was a prostitute and he said, “The $100 one-here in public?”

Garry Gary’s creepy experience

At some point we were standing around and chatting with Garry Gary Beers. He told us that he was very drunk at the Pizza A Go Go. When we were chatting with him in that club after the show at the Beacon Theatre in New York City, I didn’t get the impression that he was drunk. Garry told us that the next morning he woke up in an apartment that belonged to a woman he didn’t know, and he couldn’t remember how he got there or what happened.

I think he blamed that on his drinking but I when I heard that, I thought this woman must have put something in his drink because he did not seem blackout drunk when we left the club.

Michael wants a kiss

There was another thing that happened, and I think it happened before the show and not after. Terri, Jess and I were standing around and talking to each other when Michael walked up to me from my left and said to me, “I want a kiss.” Either I didn’t hear him, or it was something I was too surprised to process.

Michael was very soft spoken but also, now that I am old, I’m almost deaf in my left ear. Perhaps, the loss of hearing in that ear had already begun. In any case, I didn’t understand what he said so I said, “What?” and he said it again. “I want a kiss.”

That time I heard him, but I didn’t respond because I was thinking about it. Unfortunately for me, I had caught herpes simplex, the kind of herpes that causes cold sores on the lips, when I was around nine years old. I had enough experience with it that I knew I had a cold sore coming on. It just wasn’t visible yet.

Then there was the situation where I would be kissing Michael in front of my friends again and this time it would also be in front of the band and Kirk Pengilly.

When I didn’t respond right away to Michael’s demand, he went ahead and kissed me on the cheek. Problem solved! I didn’t reject him or give him herpes. I’m not sure if we stood around for a bit or if Michael just went away.

On the guest list

INXS eventually went into Barrymore’s through the back, and we did not. Gary Grant put us on the guest list, so we didn’t have to pay when they opened the doors for the customers and we went in.

My diary says that Barrymore’s was a dive but does not give details. From what I recall, there was a stage and an area where people could dance. The rest of the place was full of tables. The tables nearest the stage were round and seated about six people. There were only three or four. I don’t remember what the tables further back were like or how many there were.

The three of us sat down at a table near the front and chatted with a couple of young women also at our table who had seen INXS play in Sydney. That’s all I remember about them.

INXS started playing and everyone was sitting down

Everyone in the club was sitting down when INXS came out and started the show. The band was not happy about that. We should have been the first ones to get up and dance, but we were not. A couple of people at another table were the first to stand up and dance to the music and we followed them.

Michael and Timmy were trying to get people up and dancing any way they could. Michael said, “We don’t do sit down shows in Australia” and then told the audience, “You can put your books down now.”

Timmy was not happy

We were already out of our seats when Timmy used his microphone and said, “We’re not necrophiliacs, you know. We don’t like fucking dead people.” My mouth dropped open in shock when I heard that because that was the last thing I was expecting to hear. Then I laughed because it was funny. Jess didn’t understand so I spoke into her ear and told her what necrophilia is.

Timmy was angry that the audience was being so unenthusiastic and acting dead. We approached the table in front of us and urged the people sitting there to get up and dance with us. And they did. But there were only a dozen people who got up and danced near the stage.

There are many people in the world who would have loved a chance to see INXS perform up close like that. The people sitting in the club having drinks that night were not those people.

A guy is ejected from the club

INXS lost one member of the audience that night when a young man walked up to the stage carrying a bottle of gin. After the guy handed the bottle to Michael Hutchence, he was immediately thrown out of the club.

We had fun dancing and sweating but I would not call it one of the best shows. The shows that have a larger, more enthusiastic audience are the best shows. There is more positive energy flowing then.

Back to the parking lot

After the show was over, we went back to the parking lot and waited near the bus along with a few other people from the show, including the guy who had been thrown out. It was dark by then.

Oh my god, it’s Gary Grant!

Gary Grant and Chris Murphy came out of the club first because they were doing their jobs as managers. When I saw Gary Grant, I said, “Aren’t you Gary Grant?” When he said, “Yes”, I said, “Oh my god!” To which he replied, “Fuck off!” I loved Gary Grant for that. When I took the piss with him, he gave it right back to me.

For the first time, I also said hello to Chris Murphy. It’s possible I mentioned to him that I was the one who screamed at him the day before, but I can’t be sure.

My photo with Garry Gary Beers

Garry Gary came over to us and said, “Thanks for coming, especially tonight.” We were great fans, if I do say so myself!

Both Jess and I took the opportunity to have our photos taken with Garry Gary. When I was standing next to Garry, it was clear that I was taller than him. He commented, “Are you still growing?” I think I was wearing my white sandals that only had about a half inch heel.

In response to his annoying remark about my height, I slipped off my shoes and then bent my knees and scrunched down a little so I would be his height. Cuz, fuck you! Dudes suck.

When it seemed that Garry got my point, I stood up a little straighter for the photo but not to my full height, so I don’t look my actual height in the photo. This is the photo that is in the Calling All Nations book.

Donna Smith and Garry Gary Beers. After the INXS show at Barrymore’s in Ottawa City, Canada. Friday, August 3, 1984. Photo probably taken by Terri

Here is the photo of Jess and Garry

Jess and Garry Gary Beers. After the INXS show at Barrymore’s in Ottawa City, Canada. Friday, August 3, 1984. Photo taken by Terri.

Way to be!

I saw that there was a guy talking to Michael and it was the guy who had been kicked out of the club, so I went over to them and said, “You’re the guy who got kicked out!” Then I extended my hand for a handshake. We shook hands and I said, “Way to be!” If I recall correctly, I walked away again and paid no attention to Michael.

Jackie was in the Bahamas

Next, we said hello to Jon and told Jon that Jackie Fuhrmann was sorry that she couldn’t be here with us because her parents had forced her to go to the Bahamas with them. He laughed and was like, “Oh no, poor Jackie!” because it was quite ridiculous. Then he said, “I wish I was in the Bahamas right now!”

My photo with Michael Hutchence

All of the photos I ever took with any members of INXS were taken on this day after the show.

Those photos were with Garry Gary and with Michael. Terri was the one who said, “I want to take a photo you two together” to me and Michael. So, we came together but we never actually posed.

We stood next to each other, and Michael put his arm around my waist while I put my arm around his shoulder, but then we started looking at each other and talking. And there was nothing Terri could do to get us to look at the camera. She got tired of waiting and just snapped the photo.

I’m not sure how long we were standing there talking. When we remembered that we were supposed to have our photo taken, we turned to look forward and Terri was gone! After that, we went our separate ways.

The only thing I remember talking to Michael about was me buying the two records in Toronto the day before- The Birthday Party and Fad Gadget. And I told him the factoid about how the guitarist from The Birthday Party also played guitar on the Fad Gadget album.

Michael Hutchence and Donna Smith. After the INXS show at Barrymore’s in Ottawa City, Canada. Friday, August 3, 1984. Photo taken by Terri

INXS leaves for Montreal

You can see from the photo that Michael was drinking a beer. The band stayed in the parking lot with some fans for the time it took to have a beer but then INXS had to leave for the next city and the next concert.

The bus drove off to Montreal that night and we drove back to our hotel in Ottawa. We drove to Montreal the next morning where INXS had a hotel, and we did not. Someone must have told us where they would be staying in Montreal because we drove straight there the next day.

April 14, 2026
Blog Post 22- INXS in Toronto, Canada, August 2, 1984

Tim Farriss, INXS, photo by Terri, 8/15/1983

I don’t know if this was one of the photos that Terri and Jess sold at the concert in Toronto. I can’t find the original print to confirm who took it but I’m pretty sure it was taken by Terri on August 15, 1983, in New Haven when INXS played at Toad’s Place. I was not at that show.

Terri, Jess, and I left for Toronto, Canada on Wednesday night, August 1st, around 11:30pm. We borrowed a Chevy Suburban that belonged to Jess’ father to make the trip

Brochure for the 1982 Chevrolet Suburban.

The drive to Toronto

It was dark and rainy when we set off with me driving the car on Route 17. Not long into the drive, I almost drove off the road and onto the grassy median because I was following the wrong line. But I didn’t and I managed to drive most of the way to Toronto-probably five or six hours-without crashing the car. Either Terri or Jess took over when we stopped for gas and to use the bathroom.

Screenshot from Google Maps of the drive from Hillsdale, NJ to Toronto, Canada.

Gasoline cost about 90 cents a gallon at the time. If we were lucky, that giant gas-guzzling car got about 18 miles to the gallon so we would have used 26 gallons of gas to get to Toronto at a cost of $23 which we would have split among the three of us. In 2026 dollars, what each of us would have to pay now would be the total cost of the gas then.

Buying concert tickets and LP records in Toronto

When we arrived, it was Thursday morning around 7:30am. The first thing we did was check into our hotel where we slept for a couple of hours. After that we had to buy tickets for the concert, so we went to a shopping mall. I no longer remember if we bought our tickets there or if we were told to buy them somewhere else. My diary only says that we went to a mall to find out about tickets and that on the way to the Masonic Temple where the show would be, I bought two LP records somewhere.

Here is some information about the Concert Hall in the Masonic Temple in Toronto. Two different articles.

https://www.torontojourney416.com/masonic-temple

Tales from The Concert Hall at the Masonic Temple

Fad Gadget and The Birthday Party

The albums I bought were Junkyard by The Birthday Party and Gag by Fad Gadget. I had either read somewhere (maybe in Trouser Press magazine) or noticed it when looking at both albums, that Rowland Howard, the guitarist for The Birthday Party, had played guitar on the Fad Gadget album.

The main reason I bought the Fad Gadget album was because I already liked a song from a different album (Under The Flag) called For Whom The Bells Toll. That song was played on college radio in Philadelphia.

The song Collapsing New People from the album, Gag

Here is a documentary of Frank Tovey aka Fad Gadget who was a British artist who experimented with synthesizers and industrial music.

The line at the Masonic Temple

When we arrived at the Masonic Temple on Yonge Street, there were three young women already there and waiting at the front entrance.

The Concert Hall inside the temple was a general admission venue. The ground floor had no seats, it was an empty space. Because there were no seats, if you showed up early and were at the front of the line, you could get a spot against the stage. Upstairs there was a wraparound balcony with seats.

We took our places in line behind Patra, Marnie, and Melissa. I think we must have either seen the INXS tour bus drive by or else it was close to the time when INXS would normally show up for a soundcheck. Patra, Marnie, and Melissa agreed to save our spots in the line while we walked around the building to the stage door to try to meet INXS.

When we got there, we discovered that the band had already gotten off their bus and had gone inside to do their soundcheck, so we waited outside for them to come out.

Getting autographs for our new friends

My plan was to get autographs for the three young women as a thank you so when Michael came out, I asked, “Michael, can you do me a favor?” and I explained to him that we were only able to talk to them because Patra, Marnie, and Melissa were at the front door saving our spots in line. I asked if I could get his autograph for them which was something that I never got for myself because it seemed beside the point after we had made out in July. (see blog post 16 )

Both Michael and Garry Gary signed their autographs for the three of them. What I used for the autographs is something I no longer remember. Perhaps I had a small notebook in my purse.

Once that was done, I went back to the front door and got back in the line. My diary doesn’t say if Terri and Jess came with me or stayed behind to talk to the band and joined me later. In any case, I gave the autographs to the kind Canadian women, and they were happy I did that for them.

The INXS concert

Eventually, the doors opened, and we all went inside the venue. Terri and Jess took spots against the stage-on the right side, of course, in front of where Timmy Farriss and Garry Gary Beers would be.

Being down on the floor and close to the stage meant that you would be on your feet being jostled and potentially crushed for the entire concert. I was tired and didn’t want to suffer through that, so I went up to the balcony on the left side on the stage.

Instead of taking an actual seat, I sat down on the concrete floor and dangled my legs over the edge of the balcony. At the time, there was a railing, so I wasn’t in any danger. My legs fit under the first bar and my chest was up against the next bar and I could hold on to it. The view I had of the stage from there was great.

Based on what I wrote in my diary, I must have been wearing shorts. My legs, bare except for some pink Day-Glo ankle socks, were dangling above the crowd. Day-Glo, also known as neon or fluorescent, colors were popular in the 1980s. Madonna often wore bright neon green or other colored clothes.

Day-Glo colors of the 1980s

Terri and Jess had brought some prints with them of photos they had taken of INXS when they were at other shows. Some were shot during the concerts, and some were from when INXS were signing autographs or showing up for soundcheck. They sold some to other fans in the crowd.

This concert was one of my favorites because no one blocked my view or screamed in my ear, and I wasn’t far from the stage. No one pushed me or touched me; no one told me to move or threatened to kick me out. I wasn’t told I had to sit down but I wasn’t forced to stand up either and I was able to relax and enjoy the show.

Saving Tim Farriss

During the show, Tim Farriss was nearly pulled off the stage while he was playing guitar by some woman in the audience who had reached up and grabbed his shirt. The shirt was being torn while Tim was being pulled closer to the edge of the stage.

I watched from the balcony as Terri punched that woman’s arm repeatedly until she let go of Tim’s shirt. Terri saved Tim from falling off the stage, but his shirt was destroyed.

Michael climbs the stack of monitors

Also, while watching the show it looked like Garry Gary had noticed where I was sitting.

Michael, however, appeared not to notice me this time. During the song Wishy Washy, which is from the first INXS album, Michael climbed up a stack of large monitors to reach the level of the balcony. He was about 12 feet away, but I guess he was looking elsewhere. My diary is not super specific about most things. Sometimes I remember the details I left out of the diary, and sometimes I don’t.

When INXS performed Wishy Washy during this tour, Michael usually did something during the long musical interlude before the last verse of the song, whether it was taking off his shoes, or having a rest, or drinking water, or climbing up some monitors. About a week later, he would be joining me on a different balcony, but I will get to that in a future post.

I’m saving the good video for that post but here is the album version of Wishy Washy.

Outside after the show

As usual, we waited outside after the show for INXS to come out. The first person we saw was Gary Grant. He stopped to talk to us, and he pointed out a dark-haired man and told us he was Chris Murphy.

Chris Murphy was the main manager of INXS. You can read more about him here.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/visionary-manager-s-belief-in-inxs-paid-off-in-spades-20210120-p56vow.html

Gary Grant told us that we should scream at Chris Murphy when he walked by us. I told Gary that I would do my imitation of a hysterical fan. He left and we waited for Chris Murphy to walk by.

Instead, Chris Murphy headed for the tour bus. When Chris was about to get on the bus, I screamed, “Oh my God, it’s Chris Murphy!” in the same way a girl might scream “Oh my God, it’s Michael Hutchence!” I didn’t see how Chris reacted. Terri told me that the look on his face was “priceless.”

I was disappointed that Gary Grant wasn’t there to see it so I decided I would act like a hysterical fan when I saw him again. While we waited for him to reappear and for the members of INXS to leave the venue, I sat on a wall near the back door.

Michael’s hat is snatched

Michael Hutchence came out and he was wearing his green hat. It’s the one in this picture that was going to be taken by Jess in Montreal in a couple of days.

Montreal, Canada. Michael and Tim of INXS doing an interview. August 4, 1984. Photo taken by Jess.

A young man walked up to Michael, snatched the hat from his head, and started running.

When I saw that happen, I pushed myself off the wall with the intention of chasing the guy and getting Michael’s hat back. I had been a track star in high school (only two years before) so I had no doubt I could catch him. But I didn’t have to run because someone else closer to Michael caught the guy and brought Michael’s hat back to him.

Oh my God, it’s Gary Grant!

Then I saw Gary Grant step off the roadies’ tour bus, which was parked near the band’s tour bus, so I walked over to him and started acting like a hysterical fan. I’m proud of the acting job I did. I started saying, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” over and over, very quickly, and my voice sounded like I was going to cry. Also, I was flapping both hands near my ears like I was standing in front of Paul McCartney and adding, “Oh my God, it’s Gary Grant!” to the mix.

Coincidentally, Kirk Pengilly had left the venue and was walking to the tour bus near where we were. I was facing the direction Kirk came from. Just when Kirk came near was when Gary Grant grabbed the sides of both of my arms near my shoulders with his hands and started shaking me back and forth while yelling, “shut the fuck up!”, and I was still crying, “Oh my God!”

The look on Kirk’s face when he saw us was funny. It looked like he was thinking, “What the fuck?” I’m sure what we were doing looked crazy. So, I stopped doing the imitation and started laughing because I had gotten Gary Grant really good.

Gary let go of me and then gave me a hard time because I fucked with him. He probably said some things like, “you weren’t supposed to do that to me”, “don’t ever do that again”, etc. I think he used a few more curse words. His use of profanity was one of the things I liked most about him.

I told Gary that I had no choice but to do that to him because he didn’t get to see it when I did it to Chris Murphy and I had to show him.

Talking to Kirk Pengilly

Kirk came over and chatted with me, Jess, and Terri. He said hello and while we were talking, he said he would try to put us on the guest list for the upcoming INXS show at the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, New Jersey on August 10th.

The subject of the videotapes that Jess and Terri gave to INXS must have come up. I had nothing to do with taping movies or Shogun for them because my family did not own a VCR, so I don’t remember when it was that they gave the band those tapes. They most likely gave them to INXS that day. It was the first time we had seen INXS since we saw them at the Beacon Theatre and we wanted Tim to look at a list of tapes.

Kirk offered to mail the videocassette (VHS) tapes back to Terri and Jess when INXS was done watching them.

What is a VCR (Videocassette Recorder)?

This post on the history of the VCR points out that before 1985, VCRs were expensive.

https://everpresent.com/vcr-history

Wikipedia post about the VCR

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videocassette_recorder

I can’t remember if Terri and Jess said yes or no to that offer. Kirk was a responsible guy, so we had no worries that he would not come through for us. We trusted Kirk, Timmy, and Gary Grant as being reliable. Michael was seen as unreliable, so we didn’t ask him to put us on guest lists and I don’t think our judgment was wrong. Terri or Jess might have given Kirk their address so he could send the tapes. Maybe there is something in a letter that mentions it.

Did they ever get the videotapes back?

I’ve looked and there is no mention of Kirk, but Terri mentions a couple of times in October and in November that she hasn’t received her tape back from Tim. She had spoken to Gary Grant on the phone in November 1984 and Gary said he was due to pick up fan mail later that day, so Terri asked him to tell Tim “Hi” and ask, “Where’s my tape?”

I don’t know if Jess or Terri got any videotapes back from INXS.

We parted ways with INXS until it be morrow

We did not hang out with INXS that night. Once they all walked out of the Masonic Temple and got on the tour bus, they left, and I don’t know where they went. We went back to our hotel to sleep because we had to drive ourselves to Ottawa City the next day for the next INXS show.

March 23, 2026