Dave Wilson Remembers… Pete MacFie

A Dangerous Foray into the Cultural Underworld.

I remember the suits. I was allowed to wear my best suit to school because we were going
to a concert that night. Not a show, not an event, but a musical concert, so a suit was
required. To wear a good suit to school was cool, and a change from the weary uniform.
This made the day special from the very beginning.
I must tell you about MacFie or Mac, or Macca. He was,(and still is) my oldest and best
friend and at the time of this event was my rock’n’roll mentor. He had more 45’s and
L.P’s than anyone had a right to. He would add to his collection every week, having
access to more money than I ever could, or having more inventive methods of acquisition
that were beyond me. Not only did Mac at a very early age have an encyclopaedic
knowledge of rock music, but he inhabited the world of music in dress, style, speech,
mannerisms, and behaviour. With elaborately coiffed hair, thick rubber-soled shoes, an
alarming collection of vividly coloured socks and a genuine “white sports coat”, he was
the embodiment of 50’s cool Aussie, suburban, middle-class, style. He could break into
raucous musical renditions at the slightest provocation; one of his most triumphant
moments was to man the record player at a school social, and control the music. He put
on “I Go Ape”, by, I think, Neil Sedaka, which has a slow beginning which made the kids
groan because they thought he had chosen a dreary waltz. However when the frantic
main theme kicked in, and the kids leapt into joyous frenzy, his beam was seraphic. After
walking home from school with a gaggle of girls we would retire to Mac’s rather
sumptuous home in Newlands Avenue, lie on the living room floor and listen to dozens
of 45’s: Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Neil Sedaka, The Platters, Eddie Cochran, the
Everly Brothers, Ricky Nelson and of course the LP Elvis’s Golden Records. Sometimes,
in a burst of pro-active involvement, we would leap onto the obligatory family piano to
pound out Jerry Lee Lewis-on one memorable occasion to the point of breaking a string.
It sounded like a gunshot and scared the bejesus out of us! Ah memories!
Anyway, somehow we contrived to get tickets to a rock show. It was a Lee Gordon show
featuring The Platters, Tommy Sands, Frankie Avalon, Johnny O’Keefe, and some group
called Eddie Edwards and the Sharks. An amazing line-up of talent and as far as I was
concerned, unbelievable in Hobart, Tasmania at that time. I still don‘t understand how I
got there as I had been raised in an extremely conservative petty bougeoise world where
attendance at such an event amounted to subversion . Anyway there I was; suit and all.
The venue was the Hobart City Hall, a place one associated with hobbies exhibitions,
school balls, public examinations, some choral and orchestral performances and on one
occasion a basketball tournament. We sat in rows on banks of wooden chairs as you
would for a music recital -there would be no standing or dancing in the aisles. Behind us
sat a row of private school girls, (Macca was very knowledgeable about private school
girls!)

As to the concert? What do I remember? Not a lot…..
I remember Johnny O’Keefe wearing a pink suit with leopard-skin lapels and doing some
vigorous shaking on the floor which got the row behind us very excited. I remember
Frankie Avalon singing his new song “Venus”…..”Venus if you will, please send for me
a girl to thrill…” hem hem, well times were different,… you had to be there….
I remember The Platters singing “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and sounding just as
exciting and powerful as the record. I remember that one of the bands had a stand-up
double bass and another had an exciting, new electric bass!
I remember a lot of cheering and yelling and clapping, but it all seemed to be very sedate
by later standards. Drugs were unknown to us, alcohol not really of much interest-that
would come soon enough- and the whole tone was joyous, pleasurable, but not ecstatic.
At the end of the concert everybody filed quietly outside to catch their busses home. They
had to because there was a repeat concert, later that evening, probably a more exciting
and raucous concert than the one I attended, I now realize.
It was a time of autograph hunting and Mac was keen to hang around and try his luck and
I of course followed. In the now empty hall a number of performers had gathered around
a piano on the stage. Frankie Avalon sat there fiddling with some cords, while members
of the Platters leaned round the piano, singing bits and pieces, I only really remember
Lola ? and Frankie Avalon’s small elegant hands on the keys and his beautifully cut suit.
He seemed small and impossibly perfect. We hung around the piano with them, casually
picking up autographs and being politely and tolerantly ignored. Wandering backstage we
found Tommy Sands sitting disconsolately in a dressing room. Macca gave him a cool
“Hey Tommy” and one of those 50’s cool stiff-fingered waves that could be so intimately
distancing. We trudged in and got our reluctant autographs, thrilled at our success and our
brush with fame.
I can’t remember whether we came home on the Lenah Valley bus, or Mac’s mum picked
us up in the white FC Holden. I don’t remember discussing the concert much, though I’m
sure we did. Soon I would go to University and the world of rock’n’roll and Mac and his
platters would be put aside for the more sophisticated world of classical concert
subscriptions, film society screenings, theatre parties and opening nights until the arrival
of the Beatles in 1963, but that’s another story.

July 2015