INXS Album Cover, circa 1985

Alright kid­dies … this is gonna be one of those posts where we go back in time. Where we peer into the past to dis­cover a lit­tle more of my younger years.

And why, may you ask, did I decide to to this today? Well because today marks twenty-​​two years since the begin­ning of my obses­sion with all things INXS.

So sit tight … and pre­pare to laugh your a$$es off …

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Pic­ture this, I was all of 14 years old about to start my first year in high school. My cousin in Lon­don, Ontario called up and said, “Hey Em. Are you and your brother inter­ested in see­ing INXS over here?” Of course, I jumped at the chance … what teenage girl wouldn’t?

The first band I ever “loved” …

My cousin and I have been known to share such sim­i­lar tastes in music ever since a road trip to Florida when we sang the sound­track to “Grea​.se” pretty much all the way down. And with the advent of MTV and Much­Mu­sic (Canada’s MTV) in the early 80’s, we were exposed to so much more diverse music. D.uran D.uran was one of our first “loves” of many to come over the next decade.

Any­way, INXS was another one of those bands that I began to really like … first because of their inter­est­ing videos, and then because of their music. I can remem­ber being 11 years old and fas­ci­nated by watch­ing “The One Thing” video … you know, the one where they com­pletely gorge them­selves with this mas­sive table of food? And I just remem­ber really lik­ing the catchy beat of “Don’t Change”.

But I never thought more about them, other than really lik­ing their music until that one fate­ful night on the 2^nd of August, 1986. The year INXS was on tour for their “Lis­ten Like Thieves” album.

The glory of “Hutch” on stage

At 17 and 14 respec­tively, my cousin and I had this need to some­how be in the front row for this con­cert. And since the tick­ets were gen­eral admis­sion, we found our­selves sit­ting out­side of the audi­to­rium well before the doors would open. Our patience was justly rewarded as we man­aged to plant our­selves at front and cen­ter. What I can recall of that con­cert was just how incred­i­bly raw and pow­er­ful their per­for­mance was. Even at 14 years old, I can remem­ber think­ing that I was wit­ness­ing an amaz­ing band. Of course, it didn’t help that my rag­ing hor­mones couldn’t keep my eyes of Michael Hutchence. Yeah … back then, I had a thing for men with long hair and cool shoes …

After the con­cert, we thought of noth­ing but grab­bing some food and get­ting back to my cousin’s house, where we could just hang out with some of her friends. So we drove by the T.im Ho.rton’s close her house, which just hap­pened to be by one of the hotels close to the free­way. When we pulled around back, we hap­pened to catch a glimpse of a pur­ple tour bus. And ear­lier in the day, while wait­ing out­side of the audi­to­rium, we hap­pened to see a pur­ple tour bus. “Nah …,” we all thought. “What are the chances?”

“What the hell,” we all thought. “Let’s just see if maybe they’re hang­ing out close by.” So imag­ine our sur­prise when we hap­pened upon a very drunk Tim Far­riss. But despite being com­pletey sh*t-faced, he was a really great per­son. He was gra­cious enough to sign some auto­graphs and pose for some pic­tures. And because he was so wasted, I’m sure he didn’t mean to tell us that they were going to be check­ing out tomor­row morn­ing.

So after stay­ing up all night (fueled by T.im Ho.rton’s cof­fee, of course), we came back the next morn­ing. We did end up wait­ing quite a while in the car, but even­tu­ally (prob­a­bly around 9:30 or so), one by one, the band started to surface.

And hon­estly, since it’s been more than twenty years, I can’t remem­ber all of the details of our chance meet­ing. (Although I’m sure I could prob­a­bly dig it up from some of the old let­ters that my cousin and I wrote to each other.) I do remem­ber that they were all incred­i­bly nice and friendly. And prob­a­bly pretty hun­gover, too. (Or maybe they just had cologne that smelled like bour­bon? )

INXS, circa 1988, at the height of “Kick”

One mem­ory I will always hold close to my heart is when Michael Hutchence found out that we (my two cousins, my brother and I) were all related. “No way, really?,” he asked us. And then he spon­ta­neously broke out into song with S.ister Sled.ge’s “We Are Fam­ily.” And now every time I hear that song, I can’t help but smile and think of that day.

And thus started my love affair with INXS. No, I did not fol­low them from city to city. Besides, back then I was (still?) a good Catholic Filipino-​​American gal. I did, how­ever, reli­giously watch MTV try­ing to video­tape any and every video /​ inter­view /​ per­for­mance I could man­age to get. I never did join the fan club at that time, but some­how between my cousin and I, we would know exactly where the band was and what they were up to.

Because of that, I con­sider myself very lucky to have caught INXS on tour back in Sep­tem­ber of 1987. This was only the sec­ond date of the US tour that the band did prior to the release of “Kick”. It was one of those tours where the band would “prac­tice” their new songs off their lat­est album to test it in front of an audi­ence. And because the album was not yet released, there were very few new songs that any of us knew. But yet, I can remem­ber being com­pletely enthralled with it. Because, look­ing back now, I can remem­ber think­ing, “Wow. What a cul­mi­na­tion of all their styles” … Yes, the music geek in me thought that these songs com­bined the R&B /​ Soul of their “Sha­booh Shoobah” album with the “’80’s New Wave Alter­na­tive” album of “The Swing” and the ulti­mate “Rock ‘n Roll” of their “Lis­ten Like Thieves” and album. In.Cred.Ible. And may I remind you, once again, that this was even before the “Kick” album was even released?! (I must have been a “spe­cial” 15 year old back then … yeah, spe­cial like “Ed.”)

I found this pretty funny …

Flash for­ward to col­lege. By 1990, I had seen INXS a total of five times. (One instance back in 1988 had my mother help­ing my cousin and I “stalk” the band while they were back in Michi­gan. By then, they were incred­i­bly huge and there was no way we thought we would find them. But alas, my Mom found them at a larger hotel where we were able to meet Kirk, the gui­tarist /​ sax player, in the lounge. Again, what another fun expe­ri­ence.) The album “X” was released that sum­mer and I was work­ing at a local record store (yeah, how ’80’s “Prett.y In Pi.nk” could I be?!). While those songs, espe­cially “Dis­ap­pear”, served as awe­some drink­ing songs dur­ing dorm room par­ties, I just didn’t have the incli­na­tion to go see them when they came around in con­cert. First of all, they were huge. And sec­ond of all … They. Were. Huge. How fun is it to go see them in con­cert when all I’d be able to see is a “leee­tle” tiny spec of them from the nose­bleeds seats? (Hey, I was in col­lege then. I couldn’t afford to buy the more expen­sive main floor jumbo-​​arena tick­ets!) So I passed.

And then the last time I ever saw Michael Hutchence in per­son. It was 1994, the “Get Out of the House” tour. This was a tour to pro­mote their lat­est album at the time, “Wel­come to Wher­ever You Are”. This was the type of tour where INXS wanted to return to the small bars and clubs of their ear­lier years. This was one con­cert I felt that I could not miss … where else would I have the oppor­tu­nity to see them up close and personal?

By then, I was already in Nurs­ing school and was dat­ing future Hubby. I admit, I was a lit­tle con­cerned about tak­ing future-​​Hubby to this con­cert. It would mean that I would have to “intro­duce” future-​​Hubby to the “other” love of my life. BUT see­ing as future-​​Hubby stood in line all night long (while I worked the mid­night shift at the local hos­pi­tal as a Nurse Assis­tant) at the venue where the band would be play­ing … the only loca­tion that tick­ets would be sold avail­able … I couldn’t not take him. How cruel would I have been?

Uh … yeah …

But even Hubby couldn’t dis­count how incred­i­ble it was to see them at such a small venue. The fact that we hap­pened to make it to the front of the stage just made it more spec­tac­u­lar. Also was the fact that we didn’t get com­pletely crushed up against the stage. Future-​​Hubby man­aged to make his way out of the crowd, while I wanted to bask in all of INXS (well, who am I kid­ding … Michael Hutchence’s) glory. And when a nice guy ended up shield­ing me from the press­ing crowd and at the end of the con­cert gave me a gui­tar pick that he man­aged to catch … well, I don’t think that made future-​​Hubby very happy at that time. Today though, it hap­pens to be a run­ning joke about the one time I picked up some stranger at the INXS con­cert. And how he had the nerve to leave me to be crushed by the crowd. Good thing we can joke about those things!

What an incred­i­ble loss …

And then came that fate­ful day on Novem­ber 22, 1997. Yes, I remem­ber that day clearly; the day that Michael Hutchence died. It started out with an early morn­ing call from my cousin, of all peo­ple. The one and the same per­son who took me to that fate­ful con­cert 11 years prior. Both her and I were in com­plete shock. That sum­mer, Hubby & I had plans to go see INXS again at a music fes­ti­val put on by the local radio sta­tion. At the last minute, we decided not to go … me think­ing that I had already seen them so many times and that we’d have more oppor­tu­ni­ties to see them again in the future. How wrong I was. And for years I mourned what I con­sid­ered “the end” of an incred­i­ble band.

Flash for­ward again to 2005. Ear­lier in 2004, I had heard rumors about INXS work­ing with Ma.rk Bu.rnett on a real­ity show to find the band a new lead singer. “Wrong,” I remem­ber think­ing at the time. “Just Wrong.” My thought is that the remain­der of the band had every right to carry on … but, how could INXS still be INXS with­out “Hutch”? Why not do like the remain­ing mem­bers of J.oy Divi.sion (who sub­se­quently became Né.w Or.der, for those that didn’t know) and rename themselves?

But ask me if I tuned in to watch “Rock.star: INXS”, and I’d tell you that I did so reli­giously. I even voted every week online. Mul­ti­ple times. H*ll, I fig­ured that if my favorite band was going to invest in a new lead singer, I had to put my two cents in. I was orig­i­nally opt­ing for a female lead singer (LOOOVED Jor.dis U.nga), but then she got the boot. Then for me, it was a toss up between Mi.g Aye​.sa and Mar.ty Ca.sey. Mi.g Aye​.sa was half-​​Filipino … so I reeeally wanted that con­nec­tion to the band. And Mar.ty Ca.sey … well, he was just dif­fer­ent than Michael Hutchence. And if INXS was look­ing to go in a new direc­tion … well, I didn’t want some­one who try to “fit the role” of Michael Hutchence. Which is the rea­son why I was ini­tially dis­ap­pointed that J.D. Fo.rtune won.

Who’s bet­ter … Michael? Or J.D.?

The absolute last time I saw INXS was early 2006; when they toured with J.D. as the front man. I just had to know … had to see for myself if they made the right choice. I man­aged to get 2^nd row and was I was incred­i­bly happy that it was an assigned-​​seated event. (G*d musta known my 30-​​something body could no longer take the beat­ing …) And while I now know for sure that the remain­ing INXS mem­bers did choose the right per­son, I feel I can no longer enjoy the band as much as I did before. Don’t get me wrong … their songs are still incred­i­ble (espe­cially “After­glow” and “God’s Top Ten”, both which coin­ci­den­tally hap­pen to be songs writ­ten about Michael Hutchence) … And my ears will prob­a­bly have a ten­dency to perk up if I ever hear news about the band … I just won’t have that same love or pas­sion as I once did for INXS.

And thus, I’d say that 2006 was prob­a­bly the year that Emily, the Groupie died.

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And now here are some per­sonal pic­tures from my expe­ri­ences with INXS