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December
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Bill, Mike, Robbo and Daryl send Chrissy greetings all the way from Alice Springs! (Thanks to Dave for taking the pic)
gig report
Memo Club Alice Springs Wed. 7.12.11
There's no town like Alice..
9.12.11 - The Giants' Stuart Wood got in touch a little while ago wondering if Spectrum would like to play at Alice Springs. The Giants had worked at the Memo Club and Stuart had got together with Andrea Sullivan and Dave Douglas and suggested a few other bands they might like to book - and one of the bands he suggested was Spectrum. We'd worked at Stuart's restaurant in Launceston a couple of times and got on famously with Stuart and his guitarist Mark Greig, so I had no hesitation in accepting the offer.
It was a flying visit, so I'd set the alarm for 6.00. As usual I'd woken early (at 4.00) and so was reconciled to a frayed day. The flight's nearly three hours so I was looking forward to catching up reading Dave Graney's 1001 Australian Nights if nothing else - and I did finally finish it just before we landed back in Melbourne.
We were met at the airport by Dave Douglas and the Memo Club's manager, Andrea Sullivan and driven straight to the club, where we were shown around and had a very nice lunch. Dave then took us for a guided tour around the town. Dave could make a career as a tour guide, but he's very much the successful self-made business man with aspirations to some sort of political office; whether it be mayor of Alice Springs or premier of a newly created state of Central Australia he can't quite decide.
We sound checked and ate and then performed to a thankfully full house - there'd been some concern about the audience before we arrived, but perhaps a couple of late radio interviews turned the tide. In any case, it all seemed to go very well, and the sponsors, Elders, were positively thrilled with the way it all went.
After the show we went back to Andrea's place and Bill had four glasses of wine (!) and I smoked a cigar (!!). Andrea rang Stu, who sadly was in hospital getting over the worst effects of DVT (deep vein thrombosis), and told him how well the night had gone. She passed the phone to me and I persuaded him to give the room his Angry Anderson impression - which he gamely did, even though he sounded like shit.
The next morning Dave took us back to Andrea's and we were treated to a fine breakfast of bacon and eggs. We signed the ambo door (it's a long story) and then Andrea and Dave dropped us off at the airport, where we discovered our flight had (naturally) been delayed for more than an hour. It was a bumpy flight home too - just another reason to remember our trip to the Alice.
Andrea and Dave - and all the Memo crew for that matter - made us feel very welcome in Alice Springs. I've got a feeling that we'll be back there again one day..

1) A town called Alice. Actually, there's no way you can capture it on a little digital camera, but there it is anyway..

2) The lads have a play in Dave's Melbourne fire engine 3) Robbo revisits the old days and signs.. a poster..
 

1) Bill and Andrew Miller at his 60th birthday 2) Sangers' Stan tries on psychedelic glasses
gig report
Andrew Miller's 60th Lara RSL Sun. 4.12.11
A 60th birthday and a fond farewell
5.12.11 - We've never been to Lara before, so Bill determined to get to my place by 9.00 so we could be at the Lara RSL for a midday start. We got there by 10.30 and so were mostly set-up by the time Andrew's wife Judy arrived. We were the 'surprise' for her husband Andrew's 60th birthday party and he was surprised too - it took him a couple of minutes to work out where he'd seen us before. (pic 1) The hall itself is quite tiny, so we played at virtually zero volume - I was able to scoot around the room singing without the benefit of a mic the acoustics were so helpful. It was great fun and even the uninitiated seemed to enjoy the music.
It was Stan (pic 2) and Helen's last Sunday at St Andrews, so Bill and I rolled up last night to wish them a fond farewell. I'm not certain how many years it is now we've been playing at St Andrews but it's well more than a decade, so we've got history. The bar was staffed by past barmen and girls and quite a few of the Sangers' regular musos were in the room, including Nick Charles, Fats Wah Wah's Luke, Leslie Avril and the ever-present Rob Harwood. Hopefully we'll catch up with Stan and Helen at the odd gig in the future, but I'd like to thank them for their loyal support and wish them both a fruitful and relaxing retirement on behalf of Spectrum.
 
 
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