How a humble band rode the Orient express to fame
Andrew Stafford |
Andrea Smith was booking the Orient Hotel when a scruffy young band named after a Neil Young song played the 200-capacity Brisbane venue in 1990.
It was one of Powderfinger’s first gigs, on a five-bands-for-five-bucks bill – an original gig flyer shows them sandwiched between the Batfinks and the Worms.
Smith, now a music educator and mentor, says she didn’t know what to expect after giving the band the gig based on a recommendation.
She certainly didn’t expect they would go on to sell more than two million albums and become part of Australia’s cultural fabric.
The band’s list of classic rock hits is long: My Happiness, (Baby I’ve Got You) On My Mind, These Days, The Passenger and many more.
But like all up-and-comers, Powderfinger’s early years were rough and ready.
“They had lots of passion, lots of enthusiasm and you could see there was a seed of something there,” Smith tells AAP.
In those days, the band was a four-piece: Bernard Fanning on vocals, Ian Haug on guitar, John Collins on bass and original drummer Steven Bishop.
Bishop was quickly replaced by Jon Coghill, while Darren Middleton joined to complement Haug on guitar.
Smith says the main impression the band made on her was something many people don’t associate with rock ‘n’ roll – good manners.
“They were just super nice people, very happy and respectful and very thankful they’d been given a gig,” she says.
“That’s not a musical thing but I think that’s really important.”
Even so, the “musical thing” was apparent to those fortunate enough to see the band during that formative period.
“After that first gig, we had a stack of comments from people saying how great they thought they were,” Smith says.
The Orient is a heritage-listed, distinctive triangular building on the corner of Ann and Queen St in Brisbane’s city centre.
The number of people who claim to have seen Powderfinger at that first gig far outstrips how many punters could have squeezed into the room.
Then again, as Smith remembers with a giggle, “in those days the laws weren’t as strict and we probably squeezed a lot more in at times”.
After about 10 gigs, she says, people were stuffed in like sardines to see the band, with a long line out the door.
Those fans became their most loyal supporters, and Smith says one of Powderfinger’s endearing qualities was how they repaid that loyalty.
“It’s the way they treat people,” she says.
“There’s a love from the fans to the band but there’s also massive respect from the band to the fans.”
She recalls them gathering at a Brisbane cinema to launch the 20th-anniversary reissue of Vulture Street, one of their biggest albums.
The band didn’t play but sat down for a live interview with another Brisbane identity, Boy Swallows Universe author and superfan Trent Dalton.
“Everybody got a chance to speak to the guys and get a photo taken,” Smith says.
“They were personable; they remembered people’s circumstances. They never forgot their origins.”
Powderfinger’s warm demeanour was also reflected in their songs.
Despite coming out of the early 1990s grunge era, there was an uncommon sensitivity to their songwriting.
And out front, of course, they had a secret weapon.
Veteran music critic Noel Mengel remembers getting his hands on a copy of the band’s debut self-titled release, known to fans simply as The Blue EP.
“I just thought, what a great singer, so, straight away I thought, well, they’ve got something,” he tells AAP.
“It was unusual for a Brisbane band to have a really great singer who was a charismatic performer, plus a coalition of songwriting talents.”
That EP now sells on the collector’s market for about $600.
Powderfinger went on to far greater things, breaking through in 1996 with the single Pick You Up, from their second album Double Allergic.
From there, the band took off, with classic albums including Odyssey Number Five and Internationalist.
They also won a staggering number of ARIA awards, while reportedly declining invitations to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Whether the honour mattered to them or not, Mengel also remembers the band’s affability standing out.
“People liked being around them – in the audience and behind the scenes,” he says.
And that’s a quality that makes a lot of people happy.
Powderfinger will announce details of their planned 2027 reunion tour on Monday.
AAP