There were a couple of preliminaries, including Townsville’s one and only punk band, and when The Falcons hit the stage a fairly straightforward run through Route 66 didn’t suggest anything much beyond workmanlike R&B.
It was at that point, however, that Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons encountered standard Townsville Sound Shell practice, which involved remaining seated until the encore. The stage wasn’t the highest one you’ve ever seen, and once people in front of the stage stood, everybody else was more or less obliged to do the same if they wanted to see.
As the band locked into the riff from The Honeydripper (at least that’s what I seem to recall being treated to for the next ten minutes or so) Joe started working the audience to get the crowd on their feet and into dancing mode, and once that had been accomplished, the gear lever was shifted to Overdrive and we were off for a good hour and a fair bit more of surging reggae-inflected R&B with a mid-set pause for breath in the form of The Cthulu in all its moody sax-driven magnificence.
It was the sort of show that made me think that I’d just seen the perfect opening act for someone like The Rolling Stones, since they’d force the stars to really work to avoid the ignominy of being blown off the stage by the support act.
Once the show was over we would, under normal circumstances, have been inclined to head for homer, but the rumour mill suggested that there was a strong possibility Joe and company might be interested in jamming at a cabaret being held at the University Refectory, so that was where we were headed.
Once we’d made our way into the venue, the first face I spotted was a colleague from the next school across, who’d also made his way out from the Sound Shell.
What did you reckon? asked Brett.
Bloody close to rock’n’roll heaven, I responded.