As a result I was spending most Saturday nights at Underworld (for more details, see The Underworld Years) though I somehow managed to see Johnny O’Keefe and the four-piece Masters Apprentices at the Inside Out.
O’Keefe, by that stage, was well and truly past his heyday, but still put on a good show although the drugs, alcohol and numerous breakdowns had obviously taken their toll.
The Masters Apprentices were in their heavy incarnation and rocked fairly hard, though I wasn’t overly impressed. To this day it’s a case of give me Undecided, Buried And Dead and Wars Or Hands Of Time over their later stuff.
A fortnightly twelve dollar cheque from Brisbane was needed to keep me in coffee, toothpaste and reading material with some left over for the odd extravagance, and each set of holidays found me heading south on the student vacation special, the cheapest available rail transport.
The discovery that one of those vacation periods coincided with a concert by Tully meant I needed a ticket. I managed to inveigle one out of the parental coffers, though the sight of my Mum lining up to buy same must have been a little surreal.
Tully was one of the numerous bands that had spun off from Barrie McAskill’s Levi Smith Clefs and had been the house band for the Sydney production of Hair before a more subterranean existence, becoming more or less the Australian equivalent of Pink Floyd when it came to Underground Cult status.
The show at the Schonell Theatre came with the obligatory light show by Ellis D. Fogg and while it might have been more enjoyable with a little herbal enhancement I may well have been the only member of the audience who hadn’t indulged beforehand.
At least that was the way it felt as Michael Carlos’ keyboards flooded the theatre and someone (the bass player?) intoned something about riding along on my bicycle under the sea.