On my trip from Sydney to Brisbane, the first leg was the train to Grafton.
I had booked into the Australian Hotel in South Grafton.

After settling in, I decide to walk across the river to the main part of the town.
I stopped into a pub that I been to before. I noticed that there was going to be band plat there that night.

The band turned out to be a Cold Chisel and Jimmy Barnes tribute band. For most Australians of my age, ‘Chisel’ songs are very much the ‘soundtrack of our generation’.

The band turned out to be really good. Listening to them brought back memories seeing the real ‘Chisel’ live. I have seen them in many places over the years including: Jindabyne, Canberra, the Entertainment Centre in Sydney and in London.

The London experience is worthy of more explanation.

It was November 1982 and the band had been touring Europe. London was the last stop on the tour. An American friend of mine was in London at the time studying at the LSE. She noticed flyers for band’s appearance at the Marque Club in Wardour Street in Soho.

The Marquee club was very famous as noted in Wikipedia:

“In March 1964 the club moved a short distance to what became its most famous venue at 90 Wardour Street. Here, almost every major rock band of note played over the next 25 years on the tiny stage. Residencies during the late 1960s alone included Alexis Korner, Cyril Davies, Chris Barber, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, The Who, King Crimson, The Syn, Mabel Greer’s Toyshop, Yes, Jethro Tull, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Pink Floyd (who played on Sunday afternoons as part of the Spontaneous Underground club).[5] Another band that made regular appearances was The Manish Boys featuring David Bowie, who first played there in November 1964; and Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac gave their first performance there in 1967.[4] To find out who was playing on any given night, you could just call in at the ‘Ship’ pub a few doors away”.

Clearly, Chisel wanted to be added to the list of bands that had played there.
My friend was, and still is, a fan of ‘Australasian’ music (she is a huge fan of the Finn family, particularly Neil) including Cold Chisel. She went to the club and queued for tickets.

The night was memorable:

The club was very small, and it was packed. Most of the patrons, including myself, were smoking. They all seemed to be Australians. In fact, I think my companion was provably to only non-Aussie in the place.

Chisel played loud and long, belting out all their songs. Jimmy was drinking heavily from a bottle that contained clear liquid – almost certainly not water.

Towards the end of the show, my companion, who is quite petite, sat on my shoulders to get a better view. Just as the band started to play ‘Cheap Wine’, she fell backwards onto the people behind. Fortunately, they caught her and helped me carry her away from the heaving mass of Australian humanity. She had fainted.

A couple of days later the band was playing again at the much larger, ‘The Venue Victoria’.

My American companion and I also went to the show. Again, she was probably one of the very few non-Australians there.

Cold Chisel were (and still are) a great band. It is a pity that they could not crack the international market.

Seeing the tribute band in Grafton coincided with me reading Jimmy Barnes’ autobiography, a thoughtful gift from my daughter.

It is interesting that Jimmy on makes a passing reference to Cold Chisel’s tour of Europe in 1982 and makes no mention at all about their time in London at the end of the tour.

Flickr Link
Cold Chisel Tribute Band
https://flic.kr/s/aHskv5TDvV

About the Marquee Club
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquee_Club

Working Class Man
https://www.jimmybarnes.com/books/working-class-man/