Aug. 27th was the night of the ARIA Awards. (Australian Recording Industry Association) It was also the night 5 Australian artists were inducted into the ARIA Hall Of fame. This morning I had 2 great shocks! First was on hearing who had been inducted. One was John Paul Young, who had the hits Love Is In The Air, Yesterdays Hero, Soldier Of Fortune etc etc in the 70's and 80's.... Wow, that's great I thought, and so I clicked to see the pictures......................
"Blooody Hell!" Were the first words to escape my lips. John Paul Young is no longer Young! If I hadn't read the caption, I wouldn't have recognised him...even after reading the caption, I STILL don't recognise him!! Then came the next great shock. One of my all time favorite Australian bands, Mental As Anything had been inducted...and rightly so, they've had more songs on the charts than any other Australian artist. Then came their picture.............
I met the Mentals in 1987, while at radio station 5MU. The Mentals played at the Murray Bridge and Districts Community Club. I was On Air that night, but rushed around after the shift and caught the last of the gig, and then the radio station party with the band. I also stole the Mentals "Best Of" poster from the radio station studio wall and got the guys to sign it! My memories are of asking Reg Mombassa for his autograph. He looked kind of scary as I approached, but after introducing myself and asking for his sign, he broke into a big grin and was very friendly. Martin Plaza asked if I played guitar, I said, "no, why?" He said he thought I looked like a guitarist,... Ah, memories. Anyway, looking at the photo, I was shocked, like John Paul Old, the Mentals had all aged! But then again, after 17 years in Japan, so have I....
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