Photo of Kirk Pengilly signing autographs at Harlow’s Club in Stone Mountain, GA. September 5, 1983.

Kirk Pengilly, Jess, and I walked out of the Power Station music studio which was on 53rd St. between 9th and 10th Avenue in New York City. Jess offered to drive Kirk back to the hotel where INXS were staying. That was the Milford Plaza at 8th Avenue and 44th St. In the 80s, the Milford Plaza was a cheap place to stay and popular with tourists. They advertised on television as you can see in this video.

When we got to the car, Jess opened the trunk so Kirk could put his saxophone in it. Inside the trunk there was a photo album. Jess took it out and told Kirk that it contained photos of INXS. Kirk said we should bring them into the hotel to look at them. He related a story about how his saxophone (a different sax from the one he had just used in the studio) had been stolen, along with some other equipment, during this first tour of the United States. He said that it cost $5,000 to replace it.

Jess got into the driver’s seat while Kirk and I got into the back seat of the car. I went in first and I noticed that there were a couple of cassette tapes on the seat. They were copies of the bootleg concert tape from the INXS show in Stone Mountain. I did not want Kirk to see the tapes at all, so I discreetly grabbed them and hid them from his view. It’s possible that seeing an unauthorized recording of an INXS concert would have upset him and I wasn’t taking any chances.

INXS concert recording from September 5th

My copy of the cassette tape no longer exists. Jess made me a tape in 1983 with the concert on it as well as some B-sides such as Long In Tooth and You Never Used To Cry. After the technology became available, I sent my tape to a company that transfers cassette tapes to CD. It was in 2006 that I decided to preserve it. Now it is on my computer. 

It was a good show, but the recording is incomplete. I don’t know why. The tape I have starts with Michael Hutchence saying, “This is another one from Shabooh Shoobah” and then he sings “Shabooh Shoobah Shabooh Shoobah” before the band launches into Spy of Love. Shabooh Shoobah sounds like the bass line in that song and according to Wikipedia, Tim made that up. INXS.com says something different. 

https://www.inxs.com/music/shabooh-shoobah

It’s fun to hear my friends speak during some of the songs. The Loved One is the next song and Terri says, “I’m wounded for life. Is anybody hurt?” I don’t know what happened. When they played Black and White, the drumming was great. After that, they played Don’t Change and Michael said “See you later Atlanta. You’ve been great. You’re just like an Australian audience actually. This is our last night on our last leg of our little American tour. I want to thank our road crew that’s half Australian and half from the United States- Neil, Colin, Jay and Ted.” Terri heard that and said, “What?”

They left the stage and then came back for an encore. Michael says, “We’re gonna do a few. This next one’s called Night of Rebellion. Terri says, “Oh, yes!” and claps. Michael says, “Let’s make it nice and hot and sticky in here. I want to see steam rising off bodies.” This is one of my favorite songs from the Underneath The Colours album so I wish Michael had gotten this one totally right. Overall, he did a great job of singing well and singing all the song lyrics properly in this concert, but he switched the order of the last two verses in this song.

Michael did this often over the course of his career. We all had INXS songs memorized better than he did. I found it annoying when verses were switched around or left out or repeated when they were not repeated in the song as recorded because I liked to sing along. The main reason I went to the shows was to sing along while the band played. And to dance too. It was the next best thing to being the lead singer.

“This song’s called Stay Young. This one is for Rick Sales”, Michael said next. During the instrumental break in the song, Garry Gary Beers, the bass player, kicked or threw a cup of ice into the audience and it landed near Terri. She said, “Oh shit! It’s disgusting. Oh shit! It’s going right under my foot. Thanks, Garry.” 

Next, Michael says, “Who wants some more?” The audience clapped. There weren’t any screamers in this audience. “Want to hear The One Thing again? No? That’s all we’ve got left. I can’t remember anything else.” Jess yells “Simple Simon!” Terri yells, “Simon.” Then they both yell, “Michael, Simple Simon!” Michael says, “Simple what then?”, and the band starts playing The One Thing. When the song ended, Michael told the audience, “Thank you. See you soon. You’ve been fucking great.” End of show.

Dinner at Beefsteak Charlie’s  with Kirk Pengilly 

Back to New York City- Jess and I had to sign a guest register in the lobby of the Milford Plaza before we could go up to Kirk and Garry’s room. My behavior was not the best. I was quite nosy back then and I still am, but I hope I’m more respectful now. Garry’s suitcase was open, and I looked at what was there. I noticed an issue of Playboy magazine. Pia Zadora was on the cover. He had some cassette tapes too. I didn’t write down which bands he was listening to, so I don’t remember what they were anymore. Looking at people’s record collections or the books on their shelves is super interesting to me. 

We sat down on the beds for a few minutes to chat and Garry’s combat boots were on the floor near me, so I stuck my feet into them. The boots fit me. Then Kirk let me try on his Chinese slippers and those fit too. My feet are big because I am as tall as the average man in many countries- five foot nine and a half. I was taller than Garry but around the same height as Kirk.

I don’t remember what we talked about for the most part. Maybe I talked about going back to school. I do remember telling Kirk that my roommate Dohi lost one of her friends when the Soviet Union shot down a Korean Air Lines flight. That had happened a couple of weeks earlier on September 1. The flight took off from JFK airport in New York and was enroute to Seoul when it was struck by a missile. 

Dohi’s parents had immigrated to the United States from South Korea. The University of Pennsylvania put me, Dohi, and Karen together as roommates when we were freshmen. We chose to be roommates for three years and we are still friends. here was another girl freshman year but we didn’t like her.

Kirk looked at the photos of INXS, both onstage and off, that Jess had taken. I think most of them were from the concert in Atlanta. He happened to have a small jar of Vegemite that he had brought with him from Australia. We were able to taste it for the first time thanks to Kirk. Maybe he offered to let us taste it because he knew it would be funny to see our reactions. Vegemite is disgusting!!!!! And we went out to dinner after that.

Kirk was hungry and he wanted to eat steak, so we went to the Beefsteak Charlie’s restaurant that was next to the hotel on 45th St. and 8th Avenue. We sat in a booth and I sat across from Kirk. I ordered a hamburger with a baked potato and Jess just ordered a 7-Up. Kirk ordered a salad for all of us to share along with his steak. 

https://www.retroist.com/p/beefsteak-charlies

I was a nervous wreck, and the hamburger wasn’t good, so I started feeling queasy. 

Jess and Kirk talked about photography. Both Jess and Terri had cameras and took photos. It was an expensive hobby because you had to buy film and pay to have it developed. I was too poor to have that kind of hobby.

My friend asked Kirk if he was looking forward to going home and he said, “Not really.” She asked him if there was someone special back in Australia- basically asking if he had a girlfriend and he said no. I don’t know if I would have asked that question myself if Jess had not, but I heard the answer and I believed it.

Kirk told us a lot about himself. He said that he lived in Neutral Bay in Sydney and that his birthday was July 4th. New York City was the place where he wanted to live if he could live anywhere.

We heard from Kirk that his oldest brother, Mark, was 31 at that time and he was trying to be a comedian. Mark had not been very successful in show business so far. Because of that, Kirk’s parents had wanted him to get a real job and keep music as a hobby. But they changed their minds when INXS started to do well.

Drew, Kirk’s other brother, was 29 and Kirk said he was the favorite because he had a real job and was married with two kids. I think he was a hotel manager. We heard that Kirk’s parents used to run a restaurant.

Kirk told us his father would go into record stores and put the INXS records at the front of the section, in front of the other records, so that they would be seen. I thought that was a wonderful idea so after that night I also went into record stores and moved the INXS albums to the front whenever I could.

Jess left the table to use the ladies’ room and when she did, Kirk asked me how long I was staying. I said I didn’t know. He said I could stay and spend the night with him and implied that I should have Jess leave. I didn’t even say anything because I was nervous and scared to take the plunge. I didn’t know if I should stay or if I should go. And I wasn’t mature enough to realize that if I was that conflicted then I should just say no. It was overwhelming and I was not handling myself well at all.

Kirk paid for dinner when Jess came back, and we all went back to the hotel room and talked about the situation. I said I thought I should stay because the ride home would make me throw up. My stomach hurt. Jess said that she would sleep outside in the hall or else pick me up tomorrow. I asked Jess to go out and buy me some Di-Gel to take for my stomach. It probably seemed like a ruse to get Jess out of the room at first, but I think it became clear soon after that it was not.

When Jess left, Kirk came over and sat next to me and we started kissing. He became the first guy to touch my breast. I usually didn’t wear a bra back then. Bras suck. They are uncomfortable and I didn’t need the support. So, he just put his hand under my shirt. It was all consensual, but I was not enthusiastic because I had worried myself sick long before then. 

At that point, Kirk said, “Maybe it’s better if you didn’t stay. Next time.” I probably would have gone along with sleeping with him if he had pressured me, but he didn’t so that was a big point in his favor. 

Next time was a great idea. It would have been weird having Garry in the room with us. And I think he would have been because he didn’t have anywhere else to sleep. Also, I didn’t have any birth control because I was too immature to even be in this situation. I had not come prepared. Lucky for me, nothing happened, so I didn’t get pregnant.

Jess came back and she had Pepto Bismol instead of Di-Gel. She told me later that she had asked Garry if she could go to dinner with him so we could be alone together. Garry didn’t want to hang out with her. 

I drank some of the Pepto Bismol and told Kirk that I didn’t think I could do what he did for a living because I would get sick riding on the bus. Motion sickness was a major problem for me. Sometimes I would carry a plastic bag with me in case I got nauseous and needed to vomit into it. Particularly when I had to take a bus.

Around 11pm, Garry called the room. He told Kirk he was tired and wanted to go to bed. So, it was time for us to leave. When Garry came up to the room, we said goodbye to him, and we all left. Kirk walked us to the parking garage. I ripped a deposit slip out from the back of my checkbook and I wrote my phone number at school on it. I didn’t have anything else to right on. He put it in his wallet after I gave it to him. The man had every bit of contact information for me that there was back then. In 1983, that is just mailing addresses and home phone numbers. E-mail did not exist and there were no mobile phones.

We kissed again. Jess offered to drop him off in front of the hotel, so we all got in the car, and she drove him back. When we got to the hotel, I got out of the car with him, and we stood on the sidewalk. I said, “Have a nice few months,” and he said that he didn’t think he would because he had a lot of work to do. Kirk said he would write me a postcard from London. Then we kissed goodbye again before I got into the car and opened the window for some air. I was still worried about getting car sick on the ride home. 

We drove off. I think I must have stayed over with Jess at her house and gone back to school in Philadelphia the next morning, but I don’t remember. 

Kirk went back to the studio at the Power Station the next day to finish Original Sin. 

https://www.rhino.com/article/essential-atlantic-inxs-the-swing