So, the year was 1989. I was hosting the Metal Show on Triple M-FM (the station later sold the name to the national chain and is called Three D Radio these days, still on the same frequency of 93.7 FM). The Metal Show was still going along in all of it’s rule-breaking craziness. I was a courier driver during the day back then. I would cruise into Verandah Music in the city during the day and see George Mallios, the owner. He would loan me the latest release albums (LPs) to play that night on the Metal Show (the station album library wasn’t as current as Verandah Music was) and I would return them to him in the shop the next day. This drove the radio station wild when they found out about it because there was no promo money reaching the station for the ‘thanks to Verandah Music’ on-air plugs that were done. This happened a lot.
So, back to where I’m heading with all this. it’s 1989 and METALLICA released the ‘And Justice For All’ album, the first to feature Jason Newstead on bass after the tragic passing of Cliff Burton (I’d already seen the Cliff line-up of Metallica a few years earlier but that is a story for another post), and the band set off touring. It was announced that they would be coming to Australia, but only doing 2 shows, 1 each in Melbourne and Sydney. Where have we heard that before and numerous times since? Anyway, on one of these visits to collect records from George we were discussing this, lamenting Adelaide’s fate again. I rang the promoter, the Michael Coppel organisation, and pleaded Adelaide’s case. I was basically told, ‘there’s no time for another concert, don’t waste your time, it’s not going to happen’. Well, George and I decided to start a petition. Why not? You miss 100 % of the shots you don’t take, right? So it was decided. I made up a signature sheet, with ‘We Want Justice For Adelaide’ on the top and people would sign below. Many photocopies were made. George had them on the counter of the record shop and would mention it to everybody that came in. I would promote it to oblivion on the Metal Show, and we would see how we went. Shortly after this, Lewi Young, (previously of Seeing Ears Music and at the time in question, of Hot Rock T-Shirts and who had also hosted the Metal Show a while before me, and again took over after I stepped down), rang me up talking a petition. I said, ‘We’ve already got one going’, and he joined the party and promoted it in the T-Shirt shop.
George collected a heap of signatures, as did Lewi. On air I encouraged anybody who couldn’t make it to either of those shops or who wanted to do something more at their workplace / school / whatever, to post what they could collect to the station, marked ‘Attention Heavy Metal Show’. Heaps were sent in. People collected them at work and school and some were quite creative as you can see from the photo below. I am still cursing myself that I didn’t get close up shots of the hand drawn one there, that one was crazy. Ask me about it in person, it’s too saucy for here.
Anyway, I collected all the signatures together (2246 in pretty quick time) and mailed them off to the promoter, and we all crossed our fingers. Then, it only seemed like days later, the Adelaide gig was announced for the night before the Melbourne gig, so Adelaide got the first gig in Australia. It was at Thebarton Theatre, and it went off like a frog in a sock. I smuggled a small camera in, and my bad photos of an excellent night are available to view below.
Cheers.
My photos of METALLICA in Adelaide - May 3rd, 1989
