Sexism, Bruhs, and Rock n Roll

Tag: Chris Murphy

Blog Post 26- INXS concert at the Agora. Hartford, CT. August 11, 1984

Tim Farriss of INXS wearing the shirt that Terri gave him for his birthday. Photo by Jess. The Agora in Hartford, CT August 11, 1984

As you know from the last post, INXS traveled directly to Hartford after finishing their concert in Cedar Grove, New Jersey.

The drive the INXS tour bus took after the show at the Meadowbrook to Hartford, Connecticut.

INXS stayed at the Parkside Hilton in Hartford. How did we know where they were staying? I don’t remember where we got that information.

There are a lot of things I knew but I don’t remember how I came to know them. For example, Michael Hutchence’s fake name during that part of The Swing tour was Fabian Sparkle but I can’t remember if he told us that himself or if we found out from someone else. The same with Tim Farriss. His name was Alvin Purple.

Jess, Jen and I left for Hartford at one in the afternoon and arrived at the hotel at 3:30 pm. The hotel was easy to find. Back in those days, we navigated using street signs and paper road maps.

Our drive from New Jersey to Hartford, Connecticut to see INXS.

The Parkside Hotel

Thank you to Google for this AI Overview about the Parkside Hilton in Hartford, CT.

The club where INXS was playing that night, The Agora, was across town from the hotel so we decided to wait at the hotel until the band left for the club and we would follow the bus there in our car. We were not in the Chevy Suburban this time. Jess took her car. It was some kind of four-door sedan, but I don’t remember what brand it was.

NY Times article from June 10, 1990

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/10/nyregion/the-elite-no-longer-meet-so-a-landmark-heads-for-auction.html

A New York Times article about the Parkview Hilton in Hartford, CT when it was on its way towards demolition. INXS stayed here in 1984.

The three of us were exhausted so we sat in the lobby to wait. When I am tired, I feel like I am drunk- out of it and kind of floating in space. The sun was shining on me, and I felt like I was in a dream.

I used to feel the same way at the end of working a graveyard shift or when I had a very strenuous track meet where I was in multiple events and/or I had to run heats. Sometime soon I will write about track.

The young woman who was taken for a ride

There was another young woman waiting in the lobby, so we talked to her to find out if she was also an INXS fan and she had a story to tell us.

She was waiting for a family member to pick her up and take her back to New Jersey. This young woman was at the concert in Cedar Grove the night before just like us and after the show she went on the tour bus to meet the band.

What she didn’t know was that INXS was traveling to Hartford, CT and not to a local hotel. By the time she found out what was happening, it was too late and she had to accompany the band to Connecticut.

Then when they got there, she had no place to sleep and got stuck in the same room as the tour bus driver, Randy, the same Randy who was going to buy us a drink and then make love to me. I felt so bad for this young woman. All she had done was make an innocent mistake and her punishment did not fit the crime.

She told us that Randy asked her to give him a massage. What a scary and uncomfortable way to have to spend the night! (Although it was probably more like 6am by the time INXS checked in at the Parkview Hilton.)

Accidentally running into Chris Murphy

Somehow, we heard that there was a vending machine on the fourth floor and we wanted something to drink so Jess, Jen, and I got on the elevator and went up there.

The plan was that Jess would try to hold the elevator for us while we got the soda from the machine. But we took too long and the elevator door closed before we could get in.

Jess came back up to the fourth floor on the same elevator right away and we got in but instead of going back down to the lobby, the elevator kept going up. When it stopped at the 14th floor and the doors opened, Chris Murphy, the manager of INXS, was standing there.

Chris looked at us and when he got inside the elevator he asked, “Didn’t I just see you yesterday?” And we said yes because he had just seen us a few hours before. We felt so embarrassed because it was not our intention at all to run into any of those people in the elevator but now it seemed like we were roaming the hotel looking for them.

Later, when INXS started mentioning in interviews that fans were following them around, I was sure they were referring to us because even Chris Murphy was recognizing us. I’m sure there were other groups of fans who followed them around at other times or in other parts of the country but that doesn’t change my thoughts on this subject.

Gary Grant is less than happy to see us

After we got back to the hotel lobby, more people from INXS started coming down there too. When we saw Gary Grant come down, we walked over to him and when he saw us, he was quite annoyed. “What are you doing here?”, he asked in a stern, accusatory tone. “You said it was your last show yesterday.”

I quipped that we were here because I had forgotten to buy a t-shirt the day before. Jess also offered an excuse and pointed to Jen. “Do you remember that Jen is from St Petersburg?”, she asked him. Gary said that he remembered Jen being there when we were in Florida. Jess told Gary that we decided to come to one more show for Jen’s sake so she could see INXS one more time before she went back to Florida.

Gary might have told us that he didn’t want to see us again after tonight and we assured him that we meant it this time.

Hanging out in the lobby

Jess, Jen, and I sat on one of the couches in the lobby while we waited for the band to assemble and then leave for the Agora. Kirk and his girlfriend Karen sat on the couch across from us, along with Jon and Garry Gary, while they waited to leave for the venue.

Randy, the bus driver, was also in the lobby with Gary Grant, and the whole group were waiting for Tim and Michael.

At some point, Randy left to bring the tour bus to the front door of the hotel. That was our cue to go get our car as the members of INXS who were in the lobby got on the tour bus.

Behind the tour bus

Jess pulled the car up behind the bus and we waited. I sat in the back seat. Everyone was waiting for Michael Hutchence. He was the last one out of the hotel.

Finally, Michael walked out the front door. He was wearing his Nick Cave t-shirt, the one I had seen him wearing in the Polaroid picture I saw in his hotel room about five weeks earlier.

Michael saw the car sitting behind the bus and he waved at us while he walked to the bus. But then he stopped and turned to get a closer look at our car. I think he was trying to see if I was in the back seat. Then he saw me and he smiled.

The Agora

The Agora looked like an abandoned warehouse. We had to get into line at the front door and wait because the club was general admission so there were no seats. Being at the front of the line when the doors opened was the way to get a spot in front of the stage.

Articles about the Agora

https://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/hartford-agora-165-dexter-ave-west.html

https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/business/80s-music-hall-to-be-demolished/1849706

Some photos of the inside of the Agora

https://www.mmone.org/agora-ballroom

While we were waiting in line, I met a few girls. Kirsten (Kira) was probably one of them. She lived in Connecticut and we exchanged letters after this date so I don’t know where else I would have met her.

My diary tells me that I also met a guy named Bob and I liked him. When we were standing around and chatting, I told the group that I knew Mel Gibson and they believed me. After that I told them I was from Mars so they would know I wasn’t being serious and they shouldn’t believe the Mel Gibson thing.

Glitter Girl again

Glitter Girl, one of the women from the night before in Cedar Grove, also showed up in Hartford. If I recall correctly, she was petite (maybe five foot two and thin) and she had long brown hair that was wavy. She wasn’t ugly but she also wasn’t someone I thought was beautiful. I thought she was either of Italian descent or maybe Jewish because she reminded me of some of the young women at my school who were from Long Island and Jewish.

But I could be confusing her with her friend Leopard Woman. It doesn’t say in my diary if Leopard Woman was in Hartford; it only mentions Glitter Girl. My diary says, “someone told me that Glitter Girl claims to have had sex with Michael Hutchence tens of times”. Perhaps while we were in line, one of my new friends, maybe Kira, saw Glitter Girl and told us what she knew about her.

Front row

When Jess, Jen, and I got into the club, we got spots right up against the stage. We were just slightly left of center. Since I told Gary Grant that I was there because I forgot to buy a t-shirt, well, I had to buy a t-shirt. So, I left my spot and walked over to the merchandise table where Ronald was working.

We had met before so while I was looking at the shirts, we talked for a few minutes. He told me that he was from Tampa, Florida. I told him that I was definitely buying a shirt and he made a deal with me. If I bought him a Heineken beer and brought it to him, he would sell me a shirt for half price.

Not being twenty-one, I couldn’t buy him a beer. So, I went back to my spot by the stage and told Jess about the deal. Jess was twenty-one so I gave her the money, and she went to the bar and bought the Heineken for me.

The INXS t-shirt I bought

When she came back with the beer, I left again and brought it to Ronald. The t-shirt I bought was a white, cropped tank top. It looked like both the neck and the arm holes had been cut out with scissors.

On the front was the artwork from the cover of the single for Original Sin. It was a flower and then something was written in stylized Japanese katakana. If there was something on the back of the shirt, I no longer remember.

The shirt was too skimpy for my taste, so I never wore it out in public. Eventually, I threw it away. Now that I have lived in Japan (from 2021-2024) and studied the alphabets while living there, I know that the writing on the shirt said INXS (in-eh-ku-seh-su) in katakana which is the Japanese alphabet invented to transliterate foreign words into Japanese.

This was the design on the concert t-shirt I bought but the color was different. The purple lettering spells INXS in Japanese katakana.

When I got back to college, I wanted to learn a little Japanese and maybe figure out what the shirt said so I bought a travel-size phrasebook published by Berlitz called “Japanese For Travellers.” I still have it. It tells you how to say things like, “I would like film for this camera.” As usual, my ambitions were far greater than my time and energy, so I did not learn any Japanese while I was in college.

With my new INXS t-shirt in hand, I walked back through the crowd to the spot in front of the stage where Jess and Jen were. Glitter Girl was in my place but not for long. She got angry with me when I moved in front of her but there was nothing, she could do about it.

Waiting for INXS to go on

Now I was extremely tired, and I did not enjoy having to stand some more while waiting for INXS to perform for us. My diary doesn’t say the name of the band who was the opening act that night. I only wrote that they sucked and that they played for over an hour.

Finally the show starts!

INXS finally went on after midnight. Then we got to be crushed against the stage by the audience that was behind us and pushing their way forward. We were miserable. Michael was very lucky to have us down in front though. The people who wanted to grab him couldn’t do it because we were in the way.

I don’t know why but Michael was often in front of us

Michael spent a good chunk of the concert standing with his foot on the monitor that was right in front of me. That night I was wearing a loose, V-neck, white t-shirt and I don’t think I was wearing a bra. The t-shirt was something like a regular Fruit of the Loom men’s undershirt so for me it was a bit like a tunic.

I don’t know if he spent so much time in front of me because he was able to look down my shirt from where he was or because I was crushed against the stage the most severely whenever he was in front of me. Or maybe he wanted to see Glitter Girl. Who knows?

Tim wore his birthday gift!

The best part of the show was Tim Farriss wearing the shirt that Terri gave him the day before in Cedar Grove. The shirt that was his birthday present and that he thanked me for even though I had nothing to do with it.

Timmy had cut the collar out of the shirt. When he saw that all three of us were looking his way, he made a point to let us know that he was wearing the shirt. He used his left hand to grab the hem of the shirt and pull it to one side, and he looked at us and nodded his head. We got the message and clapped and cheered.

Jess had her camera with her, and she took some photos of Tim on stage wearing the shirt so that Terri would get to see it. It was really great thing for Timmy to do for us and I never forgot it.

After the show

I didn’t write much in my diary about the concerts themselves; no set lists and few thoughts about the music. For this one, I wrote that the show was great as usual.

After it was over, I spoke to Ronald again and I also spoke to Chris Murphy. But I don’t know what we talked about. When I wrote in my diary, I would mention having conversations but not what they were about and I regret that now because I don’t remember. I haven’t learned my lesson to write down more details either because I still do the same thing today.

At the Parkside Hilton to say goodbye

Then Jess, Jen, and I drove back to the hotel so we could say goodbye to the band there when they returned. When we saw Timmy in the hotel lobby, he said that he wore the shirt just for us and said that he wished Terri had been there to see it.

Timmy gave me a kiss goodbye, and he also shook my hand and said, “Thanks a lot, Donna.”

When Gary Grant came in, he complained to me that I had said, “This is it” yesterday and I said, “I never said that!” But I’m pretty sure I did. Gary was like, “Yes, you did,” and I was like, “No, I didn’t,” and it went back and forth like that a couple of times. I think I said, “This really is it this time.”

Gary Grant gave all three of us a kiss goodbye. If I said goodbye to Kirk at all, my diary doesn’t say. Maybe he didn’t stop to say goodbye to us or maybe I just waved or something. I wasn’t about to go looking for a goodbye kiss from him or anything else because his girlfriend was there and I was not going to get between them or mess anything up for him.

Saying goodbye to Michael Hutchence

In my diary I wrote that Garry Gary gave me a kiss goodbye and Jon did too. The last person we said goodbye to was Michael. Michael thanked us for being there and said, “You are too much!” He kissed Jess and Jen and said he would see us sometime.

Then he gave me a kiss and we hugged. Gary Grant was still in the lobby and standing a bit behind Michael and to one side. When the hug was over, I took a step back and I was reluctant to leave so I started walking backwards while giving Michael a lustful look.

I looked away from Michael for a second and glanced at Gary Grant and I noticed that he was now looking at Michael and me with a curious expression on his face like he was wondering if something had happened between me and Michael. And if you have been reading earlier posts of the blog then you know that something had happened.

Michael and I looked at each other while I took several steps backwards but then I had to face reality. As usual, I had to work later in the day, and I was not going to do anything other than go home and go to the Emerson Hotel.

My pocket calendar from August 6 to August 12, 1984

I turned my palms face up and shrugged my shoulders once before I turned my back on Michael and walked out of the hotel. 🤷‍♀️ That was around 3 am.

Falling asleep at the wheel

Jess drove for the first part of our trip back to New Jersey. She pulled over on the shoulder of the highway after an hour because she was falling asleep behind the wheel, so I switched places with her.

That was not a solution to our problem because I was also too tired to be driving. Fortunately, we didn’t crash on our way home from the INXS concert. When my eyes closed for a second, the car didn’t swerve off the road, but when I realized what happened, I felt a surge of adrenaline from the fear and that helped.

We didn’t use cocaine to handle driving while exhausted and we didn’t have any caffeine so instead, I opened the window next to me so that I had an uncomfortable, continuous rush of air blasting my face.

Tenpole Tudor

I also put in a Tenpole Tudor cassette tape in the car stereo and played it extremely loud. I’m sure I sang along to it also and that worked to keep me awake. When we got to my house around 5:30 am, Jess got back in the driver’s seat and drove herself and Jen to her house in Wayne.

The insert from my Tenpole Tudor cassette tape that I bought around 1982. I’m compelled to love a punk band dressed in armor.

Before INXS, for me, there was Tenpole Tudor. Tenpole Tudor was another band I discovered through MTV, and I loved them, but they broke up in 1982 which was not long after their videos first appeared on MTV. They only made two albums. My cassette was something that was released in Canada and it combined songs from both of their LPs.

There is a word in German and I think it says it all. Wunderbar!

Back when I was in high school, or maybe during the summer before I first went to college, I hunted down at least the first of Tenpole Tudor’s albums and a couple of singles and recorded them on cassette tapes. There was a record store in Bergenfield, NJ that had imports and I think that was where I found them.

When I went off to college in Philadelphia for the first time in September 1982 when I was still only 17, I brought Tenpole Tudor’s music with me. That and Adam and the Ants. I tried very hard to introduce other people to their music and I wanted them to share my enthusiasm for such beloved songs as Wunderbar. Except for my roommate Karen, no one was interested. Maybe that is why she is still my friend today.

One week until Jackie could see INXS again

INXS had a show at a club in Providence, Rhode Island that day (August 12), and then the band made its way north and west, doing shows along the way before stopping in Chicago for a show one week later on August 19. Back where Jackie could see them again.

July 6, 2026
Blog Post 25- INXS at the Meadowbrook. Cedar Grove, NJ. August 10, 1984

Jon Farriss opening a gift in the parking lot behind The Meadowbrook on his 23rd birthday. Photo by Jess.

We left Montreal and went back to New Jersey. INXS probably stayed in Montreal for another day because they didn’t have a show until the following day. Their next concert was at Toad’s Place in New Haven, Connecticut on Monday August 6th.

My pocket calendar from August 6 to August 12, 1984

The drive INXS took to get from Montreal, Canada to their show at Toad’s Place in New Haven, CT

INXS at Toad’s Place

Terri and Jess probably drove up to New Haven to see the show. I don’t remember if they did because I was working that day so I could not go with them if they went to yet another INXS concert.

The drive Terri might have taken to get to the INXS show at Toad’s Place in New Haven, CT

Our friend Dana, the girl from New York City, went to the show at Toad’s Place. Perhaps she went with Terri and Jess? Dana usually posts a photo on Facebook of herself with Michael from the day of the Toad’s Place show when it’s his birthday and on the anniversary of his death.

They are standing outside the club and they both look very cute. It must have been taken before the show because it was daytime.

In the photo, Michael was wearing the same clothes as he was when he did the interview in Montreal, including the hat. He has his arm around Dana’s shoulder, and she is resting her head against his shoulder. She only came up to his chin. His cheek looks to be against her big hair. They are looking at two different cameras though. Dana looks straight ahead while Michael looks at someone off to the left.

Toad’s Place article

https://apnews.com/article/toads-place-music-club-new-haven-1856abb962348b7313e6a5cfd285e938

It would have been fun to see a show at Toad’s Place, but I never went to one there because I wasn’t free.

Between New Haven and Cedar Grove

After playing in New Haven, INXS went off to play shows at clubs in Washington, DC and Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. None one I know went to those shows. I guess even we had limits!

Jon Farriss’ birthday and Smokey Bear

INXS played at the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, New Jersey on Friday, August 10, 1984, which was drummer Jon Farriss’ 23rd birthday. I had the mistaken idea that Smokey the Bear (Smokey Bear), a cartoon bear used in a public service ad campaign by the US Forest Service to educate people about wildfires, was introduced on August 10 and therefore had the same birthday as Jon.

In fact, Smokey Bear was introduced on August 9, 1944, which made the birthday card I gave to Jon Farriss even more nuts than it already was because what would a young Australian guy know about US Forest Service ad campaigns? More about that later.

Memories from the Meadowbrook

Normally, I add a link of some kind to an article about the club we went to for the INXS concert if I can find one. This time there is an entire book about the place!

Memories From The Meadowbrook

I found out later that I am in the book which was published in August 2014.

Here is an article from 1977 that tells of the Meadowbrook’s importance in the 1940s as a place where all of the popular “big bands” or swing bands played regularly.

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/09/18/archives/new-jersey-weekly-the-meadowbrook-show-time-again.html

On May 26, 2020, I was scrolling through my feed on Facebook, and I recognized myself in a photo that was posted to the private INXS Facebook group that I had joined because of Jackie.

I grabbed a copy of the photo and posted it to my own Facebook page where I mistakenly said that the photo must have been published in a newspaper back in the day because I didn’t know about the book at that time. It was great to have something pop up from the past that corroborates my story.

The photo also provided new information to me because I had no idea that someone had to pull Michael Hutchence off of the balcony’s railing. More about that later.

Front cover of the book about the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, NJ.

The photo of me and Michael Hutchence of INXS appears on the back cover of the book about the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, NJ.

It was supposed to be our last INXS show

The show at the Meadowbrook was supposed to be our last INXS concert for the summer. I don’t know if we told INXS that when we were in Canada, but they knew this information sometime before the show on August 10th.

Jen flew up from Tampa, Florida to visit and to see INXS. She probably stayed with Jess at her parent’s house in Wayne. Jess lived in a big house with lots of extra room. Her house was twice as big as where Terri lived and Terri’s house was twice as big as where I lived.

I know Jen didn’t stay with me. And if she had been staying with Terri then Terri would have known about the plan that Jess, Jen and I hatched before we got into the concert that night and Terri didn’t know.

Cedar Grove was closer to where we lived than all of the other places where we saw INXS. We didn’t have to spend hours in the car so that was nice.

The drive from Hillsdale to Cedar Grove. As we traveled down the freeway to the club.

The INXS gang hangs out in another parking lot

Seven of us met up in the parking lot of the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, NJ in the afternoon. We arrived before the band showed up for their soundcheck. While we were waiting, we posed for this photo. Jess was not in it because she took it. Both Terri and Jess brought their cameras to the club.

Maria, Jen, Terri, Susan, Donna, & Dana in the parking lot behind The Meadowbrook club before INXS arrived. Photo by Jess

From left to right are Maria, my fellow Kirk Pengilly fan, Jen from Tampa, Terri, my friend since seventh grade, Susan, a new friend, Donna (me) still in possession of my hat, and Dana, the person I mentioned earlier who was at the show at Toad’s Place.

Most of us wore skirts to show. Later on, during the concert, I will no longer have my red hat, and my hair will be loose. In the photo, I have it in a little ponytail. My skirt was made from the same nylon material used to make parachute pants which were popular at the time.

Article about parachute pants

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

The shirt I was wearing was the same one I wore on the night of July 2, 1984, the one that Michael was tugging on and pulling at the neck while trying to stick his hand down the front of it. You can read about that here.

The crew arrives

Soon some people arrived to set up equipment for the soundcheck and the show. They were the road crew traveling with INXS and I think some local guys who worked at the club. Tommy and the others knew us at this point because we were at so many shows.

One of the guys asked us if we worked. I said to him, “I have a job and I worked every day this week!” My calendar doesn’t show that I worked every day but if I had been asked to fill in on short notice then I probably didn’t write it down. And I think I would have taken more shifts because I wasn’t working on Friday or Saturday which were the best days to make money.

Timmy throws a table in Wilkes Barre, PA

We talked to Tommy again and he told us that the club where INXS had played their last show on the 8th, a place called The Station in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, really sucked.

The place was an old train station that had been abandoned after the coal mines closed so besides being old, it probably wasn’t in good condition. I’ve never been there, but I imagine it was a shitty bar in a boring town full of people who probably didn’t have MTV and never heard of INXS.

Tommy told us that Tim Farriss got angry (it doesn’t say why in my diary) and threw an antique table. He broke it if I recall correctly. Timmy didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would do that so that was a surprise.

Birthday presents

Terri and Jess had birthday presents for both Jon and Timmy because Timmy’s birthday was coming up soon on August 16th, but we would not be around for it. The show at the Meadowbrook was supposed to be the last one we would see. All I had was the birthday card I made for Jon.

The other Donna who couldn’t be there

I don’t think I have mentioned that there was another young woman named Donna who was a fan of INXS. Perhaps I mentioned her when I wrote about the show at the Beacon Theater because I think she was there. But if I met her there or at other shows in the NYC area, I didn’t write about it. I’m pretty sure she lived in New York City and was friends with Dana and that was how she became part of our group.

She is in this blog post because she wrote letters to Jon Farriss and Kirk Pengilly and either mailed them or gave them to Terri so that Terri could pass them along to those band members.

INXS arrives and we get our money back

INXS arrived in their tour bus for the sound check but not all of the band got off the bus. I think Gary Grant got off the bus first because he had some business to settle with us. He gave me a kiss on the cheek.

Then he gave Terri $50 in US dollars to pay us back for the $50 in Canadian dollars that we had loaned to Michael in Montreal so he could go to the Beat Club. Cha-ching, we made a profit on that!

Gary Grant probably told Jon, Timmy, and Kirk that we had things to give them because they came off the bus while the others stayed inside.

Jon and Timmy open their gifts

Jess and Terri gave Jon a photo album full of INXS concert photos that they had taken. The photo at the top of this post shows him opening his gift and posing for a fun photo by making that surprised face for the camera. I think he said, “There are a lot of photos of me in here!”

Jon opened my card which I think contained some drawings and some words about forest fires along with birthday wishes and he looked at me like I was from outer space. He handed the card to his brother Tim after possibly commenting that it was weird, and Tim looked at it and said something like, “I think she’s very artistic!” And I said, “Did you say I was artistic or autistic?” because I knew that card was incredibly weird. Absurd was what I was going for.

Timmy thanked me for his birthday gift which I had nothing to do with buying for him, but I think he thought it was from all of us. Terri bought him a red t-shirt that had a V-shaped geometric design, sort of like an increase in sound volume, on the front. A photo of it will be in Blog Post 26 once I write it.

The other Donna’s letters to Kirk and Jon

Terri handed a letter to Kirk and said it was from Donna. He looked at me like he thought it was from me and I quickly let him know that it was not from me but from Donna B, the other Donna.

At the same time, Terri gave Jon his letter from Donna. After Jon read it, he spoke to us about it with concern. He told us that in the letter she kept putting herself down, calling herself a bitch and saying that she was such a jerk. Jon said, “I don’t understand why she is being so hard on herself and saying those things about herself!”

As young women we understood quite well why any of us would be harsh and judgmental towards ourselves. It was a common thing to do. That is what internalized misogyny looks like.

Kirk. Jon, and Timmy got back on the bus, I believe, because it wasn’t time for soundcheck. We remained in the parking lot behind the club near where the bus was parked.

I know Andrew didn’t want my hat. Why did he ask for it?

I think I was sitting on the same wall where we had posed for photo before the band arrived. Suddenly, Andrew Farriss came off the bus and walked over to me. That was fucking weird in and of itself because as far as I could tell, he had no interest in chatting with me or anyone else. That was the impression I had of him after seeing INXS so many times.

Then, to make it even weirder, he said, “I like your hat. Can I have it?” Now, I also really liked my hat.

I. Goldberg Army Navy store in Philly

There used to be a store in downtown Philadelphia on Chestnut Street called I. Goldberg. It was an Army & Navy surplus store where they sold Levi’s, cheap t-shirts, and other potentially punky clothes that I could afford.

Article about I. Goldberg

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/08/23/i-goldberg-philadelphia-closed

I had bought my red baseball cap from I. Goldberg for three dollars, and I liked it for its color and also because it had a longer bill than a regular baseball cap so it reminded me of the kinds of hats that Alannah Currie from the Thompson Twins would wear.

Why did I give away my red hat?

After all these years, I still get worked up over this incident. It was so strange that Andrew walked up to me and just asked for my hat. I had to think about whether I wanted to give Andrew my hat and I thought, “Both of his brothers just got gifts from us and so did Garry Gary and Kirk for their recent birthdays. Even Michael got something from us.”

So, I took my hat off and put it on Andrew’s head. It fit him so I said, “It looks good on you. You can have it as a birthday present.” Andrew replied, “It’s not my birthday. It’s my brother Jon’s birthday.” (Yeah, no shit, Andrew! We were all well-aware of when every member of INXS had a birthday.)

I told Andrew, “I know that, but since your brothers are getting birthday presents today, you can have my hat as a present for your next birthday.” After that, Andrew said, “Thanks” and then walked away and got back on the bus. The interaction ended as abruptly as it started.

My diary says, “That was the only time I had a conversation with Andrew. He’s a weirdo and I don’t like him.” It’s only recently that I stopped wondering what was wrong with Andrew because I realized that he was sent out there by Michael Hutchence.

What happened to my hat?

Michael would have been looking down at me from inside the bus and I think my hat was getting in the way so he couldn’t see my face. Now the question is, “How much of a fuss was Michael making to get Andrew to do something that I don’t think he ever would have wanted to do of his own accord?” Also, “what happened to my hat?”

Did Michael keep my hat? Was it tossed in the trash? Because something else that got me worked up over what happened with my hat was that I never saw it again. I expected to see Andrew wear the fucking hat after he said he liked it and then asked to have it. Every time I was reminded of that day for decades afterwards, I thought, “Where’s my fucking hat?” and I felt anger towards Andrew.

My head was now uncovered but I don’t know how long Michael might have had to watch me from inside the bus. All I know is that sometime after that, INXS was ready to do their soundcheck. They came off the bus, and they let us follow them inside the club.

Soundcheck

The Meadowbrook had a similar layout to the club in Toronto. Downstairs there was a stage at one end. In front of the stage, there was an open dance floor and no seats. To the left of the stage there was access to a stage entrance and a small backstage area. There was also a staircase leading up to the balcony along that side of the building.

The main entrance was toward the front of the building. Upstairs, there was a balcony that wrapped around on three sides and there were tables and chairs. If I recall correctly, there was also a bar up there, but I can’t be sure about that. It’s possible there was only one bar, and it was downstairs.

Our group of seven girls walked upstairs to the balcony that was facing the stage to watch the sound check. We sat down at a table. The guys in the band were playing around a lot at this soundcheck. Some of them found a few chairs that had wheels and used the large open dance floor downstairs to race each other back and forth.

Michael is teased using Steve Perry’s video

An ad from Billboard magazine for Steve Perry’s solo album from 1984.

Steve Perry was the lead singer of the band Journey. He released his first solo album in April 1984.

If you watch the Steve Perry video for “Oh Sherrie”, a hit song in 1984, you will see Steve Perry rebelling against the director of the music video. It was meant to show his integrity but at the same time he came across as a bit of a diva.

Steve walks off the set and then sings the song to his girlfriend. Some of the people in charge of shooting the video call out things like, “Steve, Steve! Come back!”

While members of INXS were playing around and being rowdy during the soundcheck, they started teasing Michael and saying things like, “C’mon, Steve!” to him. It was clearly a parody of the “Oh Sherrie” video.

They could have been referring to the woman we saw with Michael a couple of times. We didn’t know her name but, after the summer with INXS was over, when I got a letter from Kristen that talked about a woman named Sherrie who had been with Michael, I assumed it was the same woman we had seen.

Steve Perry’s Oh Sherrie video

Wikipedia article about Oh Sherrie

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

Here’s Andrew, but where’s my fucking hat?

Photo from the soundcheck at the Meadowbrook. August 10, 1984. Taken by Jess.

I’ve misplaced 14 of the original prints I had bought from Terri, Jess, and Jackie so now I can’t look at the back to see who took the photo and when. They were all scanned into my computer back in 2008 and the only information I have right now is what I entered into my computer at the time. Sometimes the original photos have more information on the back.

This photo was taken by Jess at the soundcheck at the Meadowbrook. I bought it because Gary Grant is in it. He seems to be wearing a t-shirt from a New Jersey radio station, and he is playing Tim’s guitar. The Yosemite Sam sticker is how I know it is Tim’s guitar as I was never a guitar player or a guitar aficionado.

It’s my only photo of Gary Grant and the only photo I bought that has Andrew Farriss in it. The microphone is blocking Andrew’s face and as you can see, he is not wearing the hat I had just given him. Michael is in the photo behind the drum set, hitting the bass drum with his foot and tapping on the cymbal.

Vance, the INXS roadie who “hassled me at the bar”, also took a turn playing the drums before the whole band took their proper places and treated us to a rendition of “Bang a Gong” by T Rex.

Bang A Gong video INXS and Zazie 1997

https://vimeo.com/323365334

I just wanted to watch the Burn For You video

After that, Terri went downstairs to talk to Tim Farriss. Someone had set up a screen above the stage so the band could screen their latest video from The Swing which was Burn For You.

Even though I had already seen the video while on the INXS tour bus in Florida, I still wanted to see it again during the soundcheck. While the video was playing, some white guy from New Jersey who was either the owner of the club or the manager of the club, came up to our table and said something like, “Hey girls, it’s time for you to leave now.”

I put my hand up with my index finger pointing to the sky in that gesture that means, “just a second” because I was quite happy to leave but I wanted to finish watching the INXS music video. Also, Terri had not come back upstairs yet.

An article about the “wait a moment” hand gesture

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

I don’t think I was being the slightest bit rude or unreasonable, but this guy got angry anyway and yelled at us that we had to leave immediately. Jess chimed in and explained to the man that we were waiting for our friend to come back from downstairs.

We are kicked out and banned from the concert

The man didn’t care about that and had to show us who was boss. He said that I was rude to him and because of that he was kicking all of us out and we would not be allowed back into the club to see the concert later. What an asshole!

Terri came back up and we told her what happened and that we had to leave. Six of us left the club while Terri went over to the owner/manager to explain to him and to try to smooth things over. The guy told Terri that she was allowed back into the club for the concert but “the blond one and the rest your friends will not get back in here tonight.” From then on, Terri referred to him as “the coke head.”

Of course, we weren’t about to give up and go home. We went somewhere nearby to kill some time and have dinner. Before the club opened its doors for the concert, we were back in the parking lot to wait for INXS to arrive for the show.

Gary Grant to the rescue

When I saw Gary Grant, I said, “Gary, I need to talk to you because I got us in trouble.” He said in a serious voice, “Donna, come here.” I started walking in his direction and the other six people in our group were following behind me. Gary Grant forcefully said, “No! Only ONE Donna.” So, I went to talk to him by myself.

I took responsibility for what happened and sheepishly explained to him that while we were upstairs watching the video during soundcheck, I had made the owner mad, and he had kicked us out and banned us from the show. “I don’t know what I did!” I told Gary and that was the truth. The guy was some hot-headed New Jersey macho man, and I didn’t show the proper deference or something.

Gary asked me how many of us there were and I told him six because Terri could get in the normal way through the front door. He said he would try to get us into the club later on, but he wasn’t sure he could get us all in. Then he went inside.

So, I went to my friends and told them what Gary said to me. Because I was responsible for getting us kicked out, I decided that I would be last in line to get in and if Gary could not manage to sneak in all six of us then I would sit outside in the parking lot until the show was over.

We see Rick Sales again

Kirk Pengilly and Rick Sales, Stone Mountain, Georgia, photo by Jess, 9/5/1983

The six of us waited near the backstage door for a while and then a car drove up Rick Sales got out. Rick Sales was the tour manager for INXS in 1983 when they toured the U.S. for the first time. He was carrying garment bags because he was delivering new stage outfits for the band. I think Jess had met him a couple of times before, so she stopped him and he told us what he was doing. He had just driven over from Manhattan with the clothes the band had bought there.

Gary Grant gets us in

A little later, Gary Grant came out and escorted Dana, Maria, and Susan into the club through the backstage door. While Jess, Jen and I waited without knowing if we would even get in to see the show, we decided to go to the INXS show in Hartford, Connecticut the next day, just the three of us, and we wouldn’t tell Terri,  Dana, Susan, or Maria that we were going. It would be easier to manage it that way.

At 11:45 pm, Gary Grant came out again and handed each of us a backstage pass before we followed him in through the backstage door. The pass was the size of a business card. I think the club had them printed in bulk and then just filled in the name of the band and the date as needed as you can see from the photo.

The backstage pass that Gary Grant gave me.

On the balcony

Inside the club, I decided to split from my friends because I didn’t want them to get in trouble if that owner/manager guy happened to see me inside the club. I thought that if I went up to the balcony that I would not be noticed. The club was full and the show was about to start. I found a spot along the railing near the first table where I could see everyone on stage pretty well except for Jon, the drummer.

My friends were down on the floor and about the same distance away from the stage as I was. If we had not been banned from the show, we would have waited at the front door for at least a couple of hours and gotten a good spot at the front. Perhaps against the stage. That’s what we did back then.

A free drink!

So, I had just been sneaked into the show that I had been banned from when a guy walked up to me with a drink in his hand and he asked me if I wanted it. My first response was no because I was not interested in meeting any guys. Then he told me that he had bought the drink for some other girl but that she had disappeared on him and now he had this drink he didn’t want. So, because it came with no strings attached, I accepted it and the guy left.

It was probably stupid of me to take the drink, but the guy seemed okay and not someone who wanted to drug me. I believed his story. The drink was a Long Island Iced Tea and there was nothing in it besides alcohol which I wasn’t supposed to have because I was not 21. It was my lucky night!

They showed the Burn For You video before the concert started. I watched the show from my spot in the balcony while getting drunk from my cocktail.

The new stage clothes

I thought the new stage clothes INXS wore were awful- at least what Michael and Kirk were wearing anyway. In my diary I wrote that Michael wore a one-piece jumpsuit that was a mess of brown, white, and beige and that Kirk wore an ugly, ripped suit of pink polyester with his green Day Glo socks. Ugh!

This photo of Michael and Garry Gary also appears in the book, “Memories from the Meadowbrook.” I scanned it from my copy of the book.

A link to a photo of the horrible new outfits:

https://www.gettyimages.com/collaboration/boards/XvzaAuzCr0aYYkAOe-GuEw

When INXS was playing the song “Black & White” from their album Shabooh Shoobah, I think Michael spotted me in the balcony. I raised my glass and toasted him when I thought he was looking my way.

All seven of us were thrilled when later in the show, Michael dedicated the song, “The Loved One”, to “all of the people here who are underage” because we were sure that he was dedicating it to us.

Here in the suburbs it’s all so Wishy Washy

INXS started playing “Wishy Washy” from their self-titled debut album. There is a long instrumental break in the song. If you watch this video from when INXS played in Hamburg before they came to the US for their tour in 1984 you can see Michael taking off his boots during the break.

When the break came during this show, Michael ran off the stage to the left while the rest of the band played their instruments. I leaned over to try to see where he went but I didn’t see him. I was still leaning forward and braced with my hands on the railing when I felt myself being jostled and pushed against a chair or table to my right. At the same time, I felt water being poured down the front of my skirt.

At that moment I had no idea what was happening and I was just trying not to fall over the railing or anywhere else. In my diary I wrote that Michael nearly pushed me off the balcony and I was scrunched between him and a chair.

When I saw the photo that was published in the book, I was surprised by what I saw because I had no idea that Michael had tried to climb on top of the railing and that there were a couple of guys who worked for the club pulling him down from there. In the photo you can see that I was not even looking to my left at all.

This is the photo of me next to Michael Hutchence that appears in the book, “Memories from the Meadowbrook. I scanned it from my copy of the book.

By the time I looked to my left, those guys were gone and Michael was standing next to me. Michael must have gone off stage to grab a jug of water and then he ran up the stairs to the balcony while holding the microphone out so the cord would not get caught.

Michael up on the balcony

The guys who grabbed him must have knocked the jug of water out of his hand and that was how it got on me. I wonder if Michael’s plan was to pour water from the balcony onto my friends. He was known for throwing water or other liquids at the audience from time to time.

When I became aware that Michael Hutchence was standing next to me on the balcony, I said, “Oh! Hi, Michael.” Then I noticed that a couple of young women were behind him and they were pinching his ass. That is just wrong, so I took it upon myself to fix that situation. I yelled at those women, “Cut it out! That’s not nice.” while I slapped their hands off Michael.

Once I took care of Michael’s attackers I turned my attention to the audience below me. It was great fun to be in the spotlight, and I made the most of it. My friends were cheering me and I waved to them.

Now it was time for Michael to start singing Wishy Washy again. The last verse is the same as the first. I sang along to the song which is what I did for all of the songs that INXS played in concert. When it got to the part where the lyric is, “Hello cars!” I waved hello to my friends below while I shouted that to them.

We share the microphone

Michael heard me and leaned towards me, so his face was right next to mine. He put the microphone between us, so I was able to sing the bit of Wishy Washy that isn’t in the recorded version of the song, but that Michael added to the song during the concerts in 1984. He would spell out the letters for the word bar- “B-A-R” after he sang, “to clubs and bars.” You can hear it in the video from Hamburg.

The INXS show from the Rockpalast Festival in Hamburg Germany on May 8, 1984, was recorded for television. This is the footage for Wishy Washy again which includes two minutes of clapping for an encore after the song ends and some backstage footage before they come back for an encore of The Loved One (not shown)

I knew it was coming because I had been to other concerts, so I chimed in at the right moment and we said it together. Afterwards, Terri and Jess said I did a good job.

Later, I also asked them if they had gotten a photo of us on the balcony and they told me that they had already used up all of the film in their cameras. That was disappointing.

I tried to find Cathy Miller, the woman who took the photo that is in the book, on the internet but I had no luck. It would have been amazing to have a photo of us sharing the microphone if she had taken a photo of that while we were up there.

After Michael was finished singing, he ran back downstairs because the women had started grabbing him again.

I hid outside after the show

When the concert was over, I gave my backstage pass to Terri and I waited outside. I didn’t want to get Gary Grant in any trouble with the owner after all he had done for me, so I made myself scarce.

Terri used the time to talk to Timmy again. She told me later that Timmy said that he loved her and she was happy about that. The rest of the band hugged and kissed her goodbye also.

INXS was going straight from the show in Cedar Grove to Hartford, Connecticut in their tour bus. So, they didn’t stay for long after the show was over.

The drive the INXS tour bus took after the show at the Meadowbrook to Hartford, Connecticut.

While I was outside the club, I saw Chris Murphy. I went up to him and I introduced myself. My diary tells me that it wasn’t in Montreal that I told him why I had screamed at him in Toronto. (It was at Gary Grant’s behest, if you recall.) I actually told him after this show at the Meadowbrook, and he said he remembered what I had done in Toronto.

Glitter Girl and Leopard Woman

We saw other fans hanging around and two of them stood out. They were hanging around with Garry Gary. We nicknamed them Leopard Woman and Glitter Girl because one was dressed in a leopard print outfit and the other was wearing a short dress that was silver and it sparkled. Both of the women wore makeup that had a lot of glitter.

In my diary, I wrote that I didn’t remember saying goodbye to anyone but Michael. He gave me a kiss and hugged me, and I had some warm feelings. He said to me, “Take care and be good.”

INXS left and so did we and it was around 4 in the morning when we got home.

June 21, 2026
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