My first ever Australian show was in Brisbane, something which I’m going to remember for you, at length, because not much happened today until right at the very end.
In 2002, the first time we were asked to go to Australia, Beggars Banquet(*1), in their Beggars Banquetness(*2), decided to send us via Los Angeles because, oh, I don’t know, they had us trapped in some kind of virtual band simulator and wanted to see exactly how fucking crazy they could make us all (answer — a little eccentric, but still fully dressed). The up side was this — we were paid £125 — cash — by British Airways to be bumped to a later flight in Heathrow (they didn’t know we had an eight hour wait at LA for our connection to Sydney) which remained, until we did the fifth mclusky*(*3) show in 2016, my best paying day in that band.