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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
