I cannot describe to
you the enormous amount joy I felt touching down in the land down under for the
first time. I have wanted to come here for at least 30 years and on Dec 2nd,
2022, I landed at Sydney Intl.
Ever since I was 5
years old, watching the tele back in the old country and seeing the late, great
Aussie National Treasure, Steve Irwin do his Crocodile Hunter show, I was fixed
on being an Aussie at heart. He is still to this day an absolute icon, and
represents what blokes should be in this world; kind, caring, altruistic etc. A great mate of mine (and now bandmate)
spent one Canada Day getting flushed at The Bovine in Toronto watching
Crocodile Hunter and listening to Tina Turner, utterly fantastic night,
followed by a crippling hangover but I woke up with flashbacks of being young
and hearing the great man himself saying “CRIKEY” as he cheated death on a
regular basis.
Unfortunately for
everyone, Frankie's was set to close forever a few days after we played. Whilst at this point, I wasn’t a full-fledged member of the band, I was running
the sound board, I would get on stage and do a couple songs and I was, more or less, on the payroll
with the fellas, albeit the payout was usually a packet of M&Ms a gig but
hey, at least its something. I was always told “Frankie's is wild” but I never
expected it to be that wild. I might be bias in my opinion of that night,
but we put on the greatest Rock n Roll show the world has ever seen. It was
full on, early Bon Scott AC/DC spec, loose as and exactly what it needed to be.
Load in/sound check
at 3pm, change my strings, say g'day to the fellas, and set up shop for the
night. Easy. Frankie's was in the basement, so once through the doorways to
Narnia, you’re down a set of stairs and into the venue. It was dark and
carpeted, the walls were covered in old show flyers, the likes of Rose Tattoo,
Dizzy Reed, Nashville Pussy, and of course, Frankie's World Famous House Band, not to mention the
thousands of random photos of Rock n Rollers just living large, eating dollar slices,
and listening to Whitesnake.
Phil Lynott once
said, “The drinks will flow & the blood will spill” and I’m
convinced he wrote that line about this place. It was 6pm, we were at capacity,
400+ inside the venue, at least that again, waiting outside, we jumped on stage
at 11pm and were on fire. A few songs in I jump up, tell everyone to get
fucked, do my bit and add to the chaos. Two songs later, our singer does a spinning kick jump thing off the monitor and splits his shorts from back
to front, he is now, on stage, mid sing, cock out. I have a moment of panic, oh
god, it was going too well, how’s he going to recover from this? I happen to
have a bag near me and throw him a spare pair of jeans, maybe he didn’t see
them, maybe he did, but during an extended bridge he asked the crowd if anyone
had a spare pair of shorts, instantly a girl in a miniskirt dived onto the
stage, takes off her skirt and gives it to our singer. At this point I figured he
would go off stage to change, but no, drops his draws right then and there, and
throws on the miniskirt and she took his shorts, never to be seen again.
Looking back, I still can’t understand the logic behind this but, in the heat
of battle I thought there’s literally no way this is going to fly. I thought
for sure the night was over, I hadn’t even got to play a song yet, did I change
my strings for nothing? Evidently not, because after Leon was in his miniskirt,
I glanced over at the two bar managers, and they were dying of laughter. Phew, okay,
we’re in business, no wasted Ernie Balls. The night didn’t slow down from
there, the crowd kept getting hungrier and hungrier for more, despite being in
a skirt, Leon was crowd surfing, I had walked Matt around the bar on my
shoulders for his guitar solo, people were frothing for more, it was all
happening. Now, past midnight, I jump onstage for the encore, we pulled out If
You Want Blood by AC/DC, (fitting I know), and then nose dived into our
final track. As we finished ringing out the final notes, the drum kit went out
piece by piece into the crowd, the amps were knocked over along with the
copious amounts of lager on stage. The previously mentioned carpet was at this
point, soaking wet and sticky to walk on, the crowd was out of control and a
lot of shirts had come off by this point, mine included.
Now, part of the
arrangement for this gig was that we (band and crew) had an open bar
tab. For any new bar owner out there, this is a very poor deal, for you. At
some point around 3am, I went to the back bar to get a couple more lagers, and
then bar man said “yeah, so I’m gonna have to start charging you fellas
because your tab is $1,600”. A fair effort on our end I’ll admit, however,
I walked off stage, met heaps of cool people, sang along to The Angels and as
it happens, we were all absolutely hellbent on going to see the Aussie footy
team because they ware playing a World Cup match at 6am. So, we had said yeah
nah, we’ll leave the venue and go watch the match. Easy.
At some point around
4am I called it a night, and crashed HARD, missing the footy.
The next day, after
I awoke and feeling not too bad considering, we went to load out from the
previous night around 2pm, and naturally stayed all night. There was a Freak
Flag event on, and basically, it’s a mix of pole dancers, industrial music, and
live/nude art painting, it was bloody hectic and surely something my mother
wouldn’t approve of. I’ll finish this blurb up by saying this, Frankie's is very much
missed by all of us, it was an institution, whether you went there once, or a thousand times, you were
always welcomed with open arms. It was a place where people like me who don’t
necessarily feel like they fit in in the usual places, felt like we were at
home. Everyone I met that weekend was truly salt of the earth and still a mate
too this day. The world needs places like Frankie's, not just for the open bar
tabs and the Freak Flag events but because it reminds all of us that it’s good
to celebrate our differences over a cold pint and a loud soundtrack.
6/6.
#RIPFrankie's.
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