Flying into Australia after a brief week in Hawaii and Fiji to regenerate the batteries after 6 months with Supertramp................here we go again !!
But it got even better, I rented a house on the beach on the North shore in Sydney, shared it with our production manager Keith Morris, and stage manager Mathew Jeatt.
Also rented a Yamaha 1100cc motorcycle and started to set up the biggest World Tour than Duran Duran would ever play.
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Here is my photo above of our trip to the Sydney Zoo. You can see in the video below, we did an interview with the UK from the Zoo.
I rented the house off of the owner of BENNY"S the nightclub in Sydney, frequented by the music business there, and Grant, the owner very kindly, basically 'lent' the house to me for the time we were there.
Keith Morris, our production manager and Matt Jeatt our stage manager were also there with me. It was a fantastic place to set up this world tour.
Being in Aussie I was so far from the UK and US timewise. To speak to anyone was a night time experience, sometimes until the sunrise.....
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I spent several weeks getting back to the house for midnight to start work. At midnight Sydney time it was 4pm in London and 11am in New York. I needed to speak to both these time zones because I was hiring production for the UK tour to come before Christmas and at the same time was setting up the North American tour with agent and travel agent in NYC for the New Year.
Here is Grant, on the beach at the house in November 1983 to the left.
My back yard literally, it was the view from our back garden of the house we had rented for the time in Sydney before the world tour started. It worked out so much cheaper thaan the three of us renting hotel rooms in the centre of town.
Here we have a fine duo, Michael Chugg our promoter in a conference with Matt Jeatt our stage manager. I don't think the conversation stayed on track very long!!! No worries!!
The first outing of the new logo for the itinerary and the world tour pass, see below
The Pass was an idea from John Taylor, it was his idea to use this famous Helmut Newton photo as our world tour pass. It was very popular with our crew, well everyone really BUT not so much though by the folks at Coca Cola !!! Ha ha we had to change it when we went into the States, after the band signed a sponsorship deal with them for the US Tour.
Those Coca Cola folks were conservative and did not want to be in anyway connected to risque images.
JT with his Benny's t shirt on. We spent a lot of time and money in this Kings Cross club. Great times and no hassles
Here is Simon sunning himself at the beach house I'd rented. We had a great all-day party before the tour began. Everyone chilled and for a short while no one had any worries at all. It is the place where " no worries " was invented after all!!
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It wasn't a habit to get into trouble whilst tour managing but I double did here after the very first show we did in Sydney. It was off to Benny's to celebrate the night away, which we all did 110% that night. Then at around 6am I got on to my 1100cc Yamaha motorcycle and started the journey home to the beach house on the North Shore. it was so quiet on the roads, it was a beautiful morning, and as the sun rose I decided to open up the throttle and see what this piece of crap I had rented from the bike shop could do on a clear road with no traffic. Well, by the time I got to 160 kmph I was going down hill on a three lane freeway when suddenly I could see out the side of my helmet a car had come up by the side of me, a police car......
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Our trusty EMI crew, who we all loved to bits. The press and publicity was intense, and the guys, as usual did a great job and I think this particular crew of record company people were closer to the band than any of the other crews around the world. I can't put my finger on it exactly but it wasn't corporate, it just seemed like everyone was just having a great time together. Ably headed up by Russell Thomas.
