Back Home Again

For the Friday show we had asked that all three bands get full use of the lighting effects, rather than saving them for us. We let Shamble have some of the pyrotechnics as these could be recharged in the break. The stadium was at near capacity and it lifted everyone, the locals outdoing themselves and they were followed by a totally recharged Shamble.

Our second half held nothing back and, at the end, when we called Shamble back on stage and announced that we would now play two songs that would be in the shops soon, there was a great roar that was only eclipsed by the roar when we finished.

Saturday saw us in the studio to get the two songs on tape and, while we were about it, we recorded a couple of our later numbers in the same vein as a follow up if the sales were good. The Saturday night show was packed and very vocal and the locals moved up another notch. There is nothing like a screaming crowd to pull you up. Shamble was amazing and had become very wild in their stage movements while we did our second half with full effects and great feed-back from the crowd. When we called Shamble back for our encore songs it had the same effect as it had on Friday. I saw the promoters smiling after we finished as they could count the money that would be flowing. Sunday we had a session with East Coast Radio, the English speaking station and they were full of the concept of a joint record and even happier when one of the promoters pulled out a cassette with the raw recordings from Saturday. They were played for the first time that morning and before we had left the station their phones were going crazy.

Sunday afternoon we had a quieter time, being taken to the beach for a swim. We were then taken to a place where we were taught how to drive a Segway before going on a tour on them. It was great fun and a lot easier than I thought it would be. Of course, all the time we were out we had a small group of security guys looking out for us as Durban is almost as bad as some American cities when it came to murders. Sunday nights’ show was as good as Saturday and I thought that we had put on a good showing for the public. Just one more show and we would be flying to Perth – going home again after too long.

The Monday was again a quiet one around the pool. Our basketballers had left so we had to remain chaste. Lesley, Tess and I were on tenterhooks with the thought of flying back to Australia and had to be calmed by the sisters. We just had to get through another show and it didn’t come soon enough before we were painted and dressed and off to the stadium. This time it was as packed as the last two nights and it looked like a typical African street party was in full swing outside. What took me by surprise was seeing a few people with ‘Quamble For Ever’ signs and I knew then that we would be back in the New Year as a supersized group, just for local consumption. In the stadium the guys from Shamble were beside themselves with excitement and I saw Algernon and Felicity in a deep conversation with the promoters.

That Monday concert was a tour de force and will remain etched into my brain until I die. The locals went full on for the first time, now having all shackles released, and were really good. Shamble was manic and had lifted another notch, making us almost overdo our own act to keep up. At the end we had to do all four songs that we had recorded as Quamble and the crowd went wild. When we finished all of us girls had tears in our eyes as we hugged the guys from the other band right there on stage while the crowd roared approval.

Luckily we had all of Tuesday to settle down as our flight to Perth was on Wednesday, our first show there being Friday. The roadies had already left with our gear. Shamble was heading home today and we all had breakfast together. The one question they had was how we could stand the pressure of such adoration and we answered that they should try some of the festivals in Europe where there may be twenty bands as good as us, or even better, and once you had lived in that world, you would not want to live any other way. The promoters joined us and announced that they had organised a recording session in late February, here in Durban, and expected that we would come up with a joint Quamble album if we added another eight songs to the four we already had. We exchanged addresses with the main guys at Shamble and promised to send our thoughts, as well as tapes of any of our new songs that we thought would suit. I knew that Shamble was going to be very busy over the next few months.

Wednesday morning we said our goodbyes to the South African promoters and they gave us each a pendant that had a local diamond as thanks for a great series of shows and, even better, a good profit. They promised to send us the final cut of our four new songs as soon as they could. The flight was long and boring and, as we were flying into the approaching sun, we lost another six hours on top of the fifteen that the flight took. This meant that it was Thursday morning when we landed in Perth; luckily we were in business class so we had all had enough sleep. Even Cate was good and we were all glad at that.

The Australian promoters collected us at the airport and we had a full sized coach to take us around. Because of the long flight they had thoughtfully allowed us the whole day to get over it and we knew that we would not play well if we all had jetlag. We were taken to the Murray Hotel near the city and it had a nice pool so we took time out sunning ourselves. We had a good lunch and then decided to go for a walk. It was a good stroll from the hotel to St Georges Terrace, the main street, and we walked along looking at the shops and pointing out some of the differences to the sisters. Back at the hotel we had a good meal and an early night as we had a busy few days ahead of us.

We were to play the Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Subiaco Oval and it had been given a raised stage at one end and seats on the grass. On Friday morning we met up with our roadies and did a sound check. The local band was there as well and was pretty good. When we were resting and talking about the coming shows I was totally amazed at seeing Steve walk up to us. No more the cocky drummer of old but a somewhat abashed and shambolic person that looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Tess turned her head but Lesley and I got up and went over to him and hugged him, saying that we knew that it wasn’t him who had written the book and that we knew he wouldn’t say the things that were said. He brightened up considerably then.

“Oh, thank you” he sobbed “you have no idea how much this has taken out of me. I only chatted with Adrian for a few days and gave him copies of the pictures and thought nothing of it. To be labelled a quasi-queer in the title has ruined my life. I am shunned by all of our mates because they think I shafted the rest of you and I can’t get anywhere with girls because they think I’m gay. I didn’t even get paid from the book sales. I nearly topped myself a couple of times and fully expected to come here and get beaten up, it’s only right if you wanted to do that.”

While he was saying this I saw Faith out of the corner of my eye. She was starting to tear up and I realised that his leaving was harder on her than it was on us, no wonder she couldn’t find a steady guy. I waved her to come over and said, in a loud voice “Everyone, Steve has apologised for his part in that book and I believe him when he says it was all down to Adrian.” At that Faith threw herself at Steve and hugged him so hard I thought I saw his eyes pop.

When we had all settled down again he told us of his having to leave Brisbane and his anguish at seeing Brianna in her band in Sydney, knowing that no band would ever have him again. He had been living on the streets in Melbourne for a while and had hitched to Perth as soon as he heard we were coming. He did pong a bit so we took him back to the hotel with us, organised him a room and cleaned him up. We then took him back to the shopping area and bought him some new clothes and shoes, his old ones having holes in them. We told the promoters that he would be part of our party from now on as an extra roadie and we wanted him to have accommodation and transport to go with us all the way to Brisbane, if not beyond.

When he was clean and tidy Faith took him into her room to find out if they still had the hots and when they came down for dinner she has a gleam in her eyes that told us that they were still made for each other. At dinner Steve was introduced to Cate and he was smitten by our little Gothette. It was so good seeing him that I almost broke down myself and Lesley had to take me to the toilets to allow me to get control of myself. I was overtaken, for the first time, by the female hormones and vowed that I would never go and see a weepy chick flick in the future.

It was while we were sitting with our coffee after the meal that we told Steve that the whole band was now female in body as well as mind and he came over to Tess and I to hug us and gave us both a kiss on the cheek, saying that he was so sorry about his attitude in the past, our acceptance of him now showed what wonderful girls we all were. Algernon told him that if it wasn’t for him leaving he would still have three daughters around his neck with no purpose in life and we all had a giggle. We now had to get ready for our Friday show and when we presented ourselves at the coach it blew Steves’ mind at how we had progressed. We were all now women and proud to flaunt it and he shakily said that he could never have gone this far, himself.

The opening band did a good job getting the crowd going but we made certain that we nailed our set and showed the Aussies that a quasi-queer band was not to be messed with. When we came off stage Steve was open mouthed and had a glazed look in the eyes. “I had no idea of how good you were” he said “Faith is a magnificent drummer and the new stuff you do has everything.” The promoter said that we had a session with the local radio station in the morning and that we were certain to be asked about the book. We told him that we would be happy to answer any questions they may have and that we had the ‘author’ on hand to back us up.

Marianne G 2020