Playing to Win

by Jeff Apter

  During his King of Pop days, John – then Johnny – had once toured northern Queensland with Col Joye, travelling by train. The idea of another tour by rail had held major appeal to John ever since.

  ‘It was just the most incredible time for me,’ John recalled of that long-ago tour with Joye. ‘The sense of camaraderie and fun was always something I wanted to capture again.’

  Rail seemed like a relatively logical way to get to some of the more far-flung places John and his 50-plus-person crew would play on the Jack of Hearts tour, which was scheduled to begin in Toowoomba on 23 September 1996. Wheatley struck a deal with Queensland Rail, who provided six carriages, broken down into sleepers, a party room, rehearsal space and a dining car.

  ‘It’s not a cheap way to travel,’ Wheatley admitted, ‘but it is a lot of fun.’

  John was promoting his new record, Romeo’s Heart, which dropped on 3 June and was well on its way to quadruple platinum sales. If John’s take on Alice Cooper’s ‘Only Women Bleed’ was the unlikely surprise of Then Again …, with Romeo’s Heart it was Farnham’s soulful read of English folkie John Martyn’s ‘May You Never’. The man had taste.

  Nine days of the tour would be spent riding the Spirit of Queensland, in not unreasonable comfort – the train’s dining car resembled something out of the Indian Pacific, if not quite the Orient Express. They covered 2000 miles, with a film crew nearby capturing everything for the Time in Paradise TV doco. Gaynor Wheatley, Glenn’s wife, narrated the journey in voiceover, and threw the occasional question John’s way. John’s son documented more personal moments on what the crew dubbed ‘Robbie cam’.

  John’s train odyssey started well when he was met by hundreds of screaming locals as he boarded the rattler at Cairns. The good people of Far North Queensland were undeterred by the tropical heat; neither was the man of the hour, who took time to meet and greet.

  ‘We love you!’ a voice yelled from the crowd.

  ‘I love you, too,’ John replied, ‘and I can’t even see you.’

  John was greeted by the same kind of happy pandemonium when he disembarked in Ingham. The local community turned out en masse and in strong voice. King John was hoisted onto a makeshift cane throne – ‘The things you do for a living; I feel like such a dill!’ he yelled as he was lifted upwards – and carted through the town’s streets. He’d been pop royalty for so long now that it seemed the townsfolk were taking it literally. After his lap of honour, John belted out an unplugged version of ‘You’re the Voice’ for the excited locals.

  Next stop was a two-night stand in Townsville; again a madly enthusiastic crowd, this time with a brass band in tow, greeted his train. Many hands were shook and autographs scrawled. By now the trip had all the trappings of a political campaign – if John had been running for office, he would have been a landslide victor. The people simply loved him.

  Then he headed south, to Mackay, for an outdoor gig at the wonderfully named Leprechaun Park. Even a threatening tropical storm didn’t slow them down.

  ‘We play rain or shine,’ Wheatley assured John, as the crew set up the stage, one eye on the darkening sky.

  Nine hours down the tracks they reached Emerald, something of a country music hotspot. Another day, another train ride, another impromptu public gathering for Farnham and his crew. ‘I’m signing Paul Hogan, just in case,’ John joked with the Emerald locals, as he scribbled one autograph after another. Wheatley hovered on the edge of the mob scene, an eye on his watch.

  ‘The big question is when to pull him out,’ he said, nodding towards John and his true believers. ‘Leave him and he could be there all day.’

  A nearby busker rocked ‘It’s A Long Way to the Top’, as John, RSI kicking in, ducked into the Emerald pub for a beer. It was thirsty work being king.

  A more traditional city tour followed, another 30 big shows in all, but the country rail trip remained the peak of the Jack of Hearts tour, certainly for Farnham and his crew. The only dampener was the news that his mother-in-law, Phylis Billman, had died on 14 October. John dedicated the tour, which played to more than 200,000 people and grossed somewhere in the vicinity of $8 million, to her memory.

  17

  FACING FIFTY

  Marc Hunter’s death from throat cancer in July 1998 reminded John that no-one was invincible. In February John had joined an A-list ensemble – Paul Kelly, Renée Geyer, Tex Perkins of The Cruel Sea, Colin Hay from Men at Work – at a show staged at the Palais in Melbourne entitled ‘The Night of the Hunter’, to raise money for Marc’s treatment. John, his band and the other performers sang ‘April Sun in Cuba’, a rousing finale.

  John was reminded of his own mortality every time he looked in the mirror – his face was now a little craggier, his hair a bit thinner, his waistline fuller. He would turn 50 next year. Fifty! John joked that he’d ‘worked really hard for these wrinkles – I was a pretty boy for so long it used to drive me nuts.’ He also talked about marking the event of his 50th by buying every black suit in Melbourne, but the truth was he’d been wearing form-flattering black for years. For a New York minute, John even considered a little cosmetic surgery, perhaps some work around the eyes. Then he moved on. ‘Why bother?’ he figured. He could live with his signs of ageing, even the bald patch, though he wouldn’t mind dropping 20 pounds.

  Before hitting the big 5-0, John had an equally big occasion on the horizon, a triple-headed tour with Olivia Newton-John and Anthony Warlow, called The Main Event. It was a tour made in middle-of-the-road heaven. The press couldn’t resist: as soon as news got out that the trio were set to tour Oz for two months from October 1998, they dubbed them the Blando Kings.

  Newton-John and Farnham had history dating back to the 1960s, when ‘Livvy’ was a fledgling singer from Melbourne via the UK. They were close – she’d confessed to having a crush on him in the ‘Sadie’ days – and had always hoped to tour together. Warlow, Australia’s very own Phantom (as in ‘of the Opera’), had been cast in Jesus Christ Superstar, alongside John, in 1992, but withdrew when he was diagnosed with cancer. He was now in remission and good to go. Well, sort of.

  During a press conference called to formally announce the tour, Warlow seemed the most apprehensive of the three. Who could blame him: he was about to share a stage with Australia’s favourite middle-aged son and ‘Our Livvy’, John’s shiny female equivalent. Warlow said he was ‘petrified’. Still, he was in good spirits. He mentioned that he’d rejected a proposed new nickname, ‘because Farnsey and Warnsy doesn’t work’. He settled on Anthony. Farnham asked to be called ‘Johnny’, for old times’ sake.

  Warlow also came clean about the planned set list: he didn’t quite have the hits of Farnham or the Grammy-winning Newton-John.

  John reassured him that one hit would be enough, the Phantom’s ‘Music of the Night’. Everybody knew that one. ‘Just sing it 12 times.’

  The Main Event spared neither bells nor whistles. Backed financially by SEL, the company who in 2005 would back Grease, another vehicle for John, the touring ensemble included Farnham’s band and a 40-piece orchestra. The shows would be staged on a specially constructed diamond-shaped hydraulic set, with lights bright enough to land an airplane.

  John, as ever, joked his way through the media conference. He harked back to his rough early days crossing the Nullarbor in a Kombi, squeezed in the back ‘sitting on a drum kit and amplifier’. Things had changed. Nowadays, he chuckled, his biggest challenge was trying to work out how to turn off the lights in his hotel suite at night. It was a struggle; those rooms were huge. ‘It takes about 20 minutes.’

  Farnham was sporting a new, end-of-the-millennium haircut: not so much a comb-over as a brush-forward. Typically, he laughed about it. When asked who might stand in for John Travolta during the essential Grease medley, Farnham said he wasn’t the guy, nor was the shiny-domed Warlow. ‘Neither of us has enough hair.’ (He spoke in jest: Farnham would take the Travolta part for ‘You’re the One That I Want’.)

  The t
our began in Melbourne with six sold-out shows: more than 65,000 tickets snapped up in a heartbeat. On stage at Melbourne Park, Farnham and Warlow opted for basic black, whereas the 50-year-old Newton-John dazzled first in chiffon, then red velvet and, later on, her go-to leather jacket for the Grease mini-set. They offered up a two-and-half-hour show, with Newton-John delivering such hits as ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’ and ‘If You Love Me (Let Me Know)’, John dusting off ‘Age of Reason’ and ‘That’s Freedom’, and Warlow wheeling out his Phantom repertoire, featuring his ‘one hit’, ‘Music of the Night’. ‘You’re the Voice’ closed the main set, before they were called back for encores.

  In what was now a common ritual, women of a certain age rushed the stage when Farnham appeared solo, some bearing flowers, some presenting lips, others trying to drag him off the stage. John smiled, puckered up and then played on. The rest of the crowd, a seemingly unlikely mix of rusted-on fans, oldies and teenagers, lapped it up.

  So did the press, who figured early on that it was impossible trying to find faults in The Main Event; its participants were just too damned nice to criticise, the production too polished and audience-friendly. And you couldn’t argue with numbers: The Main Event, during its 30-concert run, would break Australian box office records – once again, those set previously by John. Around 300,000 punters attended the shows.

  ‘It was hammy and manipulative,’ noted The Age’s reviewer, ‘yet it still worked, because the trio are so polished they carried it through.’ Even when Newton-John tried out a few new songs, it was well received. ‘Because she’s our Livvy, nobody minded.’

  ‘The real star of the night was Farnham,’ declared the Sunday Mail, ‘who remains the ultimate showman after three decades of performances.’

  Away from the stage, the accolades and awards kept piling up. John had been given the Order of Australia in 1996 and had been proclaimed a ‘National Treasure’ in 1998. This last honour gave him pause: it sounded like a tribute reserved for stately buildings or famous racehorses, not ageing singers. Wheatley, meanwhile, had tried and failed to get John’s mug on a postage stamp, only to be told that John had to die first. That particular honour would have to wait – for a long time, he and John hoped.

  Whispering Jack was now ARIA’s all-time top-selling Australian album, its sales topping one million copies.

  And Wheatley knew they couldn’t let an event such as Farnham’s looming 50th slip by unnoticed. Surely, his wily manager figured, they could build a new tour around the occasion. When Wheatley overheard Farnham discussing plans for his birthday, he asked cheekily, ‘Can I sell tickets?’

  John consented to Wheatley’s idea to pin a tour to the celebrations, but he also had his own plans. His son Robbie, now aged 17 and sporting blue dreadlocks, had formed a band, a hard-rocking metal outfit called Nana-Zhami.

  ‘If I go on tour,’ John asked Robbie, ‘would you like to open for me?’

  Robbie was in. A few songs from N-Z were bound to zap a few volts of life into John’s middle-aged audience. Other acts were brought on board for the ‘I Can’t Believe He’s 50’ tour: Gotham artist Merril Bainbridge, former Wheatley client James Reyne, ‘Touch of Paradise’ composer Ross Wilson and harmonisers Human Nature, who’d had a huge hit with John in 1997 called ‘Everytime You Cry’. The song was a feature of John’s recent best-of, Anthology 1, the first of a three-disc set chronicling his career to date. Farnham clearly enjoyed the vocal band’s company; during the filming of the song’s video, he stood off camera, pants-less, trying his best to distract them as they did their all-singing, all-dancing thing. ‘Those kids can really sing,’ John gushed – even when a half-naked ‘National Treasure’ was trying to put them off, it seemed.

  Each artist was given the challenge of first singing with the man himself and then taking a Farnham song and reinventing it as their own: Wilson put his own cool spin on ‘Age of Reason’; Kate Ceberano gave ‘Help!’ the kitchen sink; Reyne claimed the chestnut ‘Comic Conversation’ as his own; Bainbridge and Jack Jones reimagined ‘Raindrops’, beautifully, as a spare guitar-and-voice ballad.

  On John’s actual birthday, 1 July, Melbourne Lord Mayor Peter Costigan presented him with the keys to the city. ‘John Farnham is a great Australian,’ the lord mayor told the press at a Town Hall event. No-one was likely to question that statement. Thirty-five years earlier, The Beatles had stood on the Town Hall’s balcony as 200,000 Melburnians greeted the hottest foursome on the planet, screaming their lungs raw. John planned a little street party of his own after the ceremony.

  To be honest, the party to mark John’s 50th was the main event; the tour was a pleasant, pocket-filling first course. That party, held at the end of the tour, was staged at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre. Wheatley mapped out the 300-strong guest list, including such notables as Newton-John (the album of their recent tour, The Main Event, was currently high in the charts). Hip-swiveller Tom Jones, too, was on the invite list.

  Candelabras were laid out on every table; French champers flowed. It was a stylish, classy, black tie affair.

  John was genuinely chuffed as he unwrapped his gift from his record company: a hand-made American saddle, a dream present for a keen horseman. (John had recently gifted BMG staffers a $20,000 coffee machine, as thanks for keeping him king of the hill.) In place of other, regular birthday gifts, John quietly requested that attendees donate their hard-earned to the Children’s Welfare Association of Victoria.

  During the night, Kate Ceberano, whose bum Harry M. Miller had suggested John pinch during Jesus Christ Superstar, approached the mic, a mischievous grin on her face. Slipping into Marilyn Monroe guise, she cooed ‘Happy birthday, Mr President’, as Marilyn had once famously sung for JFK, while John’s face blazed a bright red. An even bigger surprise followed: a tutu-and-cowboy-hat-clad Molly Meldrum burst out of John’s birthday cake, waving a feather boa like a flag. Wheatley had talked Meldrum into this startling cameo, every bit as awkward for John as their infamous bathtub incident from England in the early 1970s.

  ‘That was exciting, wasn’t it?’ John deadpanned, the look on his face somewhere between horrified and amused. ‘And a bit scary.’

  He then looked around the gathering as he collected his thoughts. He was surrounded by family, friends, peers and colleagues – and a middle-aged urban cowboy in a ballerina’s outfit. As 50th birthdays went, this had been huge.

  ‘Every one of you in this room I know and love,’ John said, his eyes getting a little watery. ‘I’m grateful that you’re here. I’m grateful that I can spend the time with you, and you with me.’ Then he paused, just for a beat. ‘And I’m 50!’

  Imagine that.

  Outside the Regent, several thousand Farnham fans had gathered. John couldn’t let them down, so he stepped out into the winter chill and serenaded the gathering with a few songs. Then, finally, at around 4 a.m., back inside the Regent, as the guests slowly drifted away, John sat his father down in a chair and sang him ‘Burn for You’. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place.

  John figured it was finally time to head home.

  ‘What’s your birthday wish?’ a straggler asked him as he left.

  ‘To have another,’ John laughed.

  As for the tour, which ran from 11 June to 8 July, it sold almost 200,000 tickets, grossing somewhere in the vicinity of $13 million. John had shared his birthday with a solid chunk of the entire country. He had a history of sharing his big occasions: a TV camera had captured his 21st at Melbourne’s Talk of the Town, when he’d quaffed Great Western with such admirers as Johnny O’Keefe. His 1973 marriage to Jillian had been a paparazzi field day. Why should his 50th be any different?

  It seemed as though the entire country was raising a toast to Farnham’s 50th, with everyone keen to share anecdotes. A man named Simon Collins wrote to the Herald Sun, relating an event from late 1996, when he first arrived in the country. He recalled sharing a drink in a Sydney hotel with a stranger ‘who told me he was in the music business’.
Collins tried to get his barfly friend to say more, ‘but he seemed reluctant to do so’. Drinks consumed, the stranger wished Collins all the very best in Oz. ‘When we said goodnight, I tried to charge his beers to my room, but he insisted on shouting me instead.’ The next morning Collins switched on his TV set and discovered exactly with whom he’d shared a friendly beer: John Farnham, Aussie superstar. He was gobsmacked.

  Writing in The Advertiser, Geoff Roach took a stab at explaining exactly why John was so immensely popular. ‘In an industry that thrives on controversy and is riddled with jealousy, spite and rancour, not a speck of mud has settled anywhere near Farnham. He has always been a devoted husband and father, a committed supporter of countless charity causes and charities, a loyal mate to associates in trouble and an irrepressible lifter of people’s spirits.’

  In short, not just a great singer, but also a thoroughly decent bloke.

  ‘I don’t think of myself as a 50-year-old pop star,’ insisted John. ‘Hopefully, I am a 50-year-old grown-up.’

  In an interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly, Farnham also took the time to discuss his relationship with Wheatley, a relationship that was surviving despite his manager’s recent troubles.

  ‘Glenn is really my motivation. He motivates me to do things, because I’m a lazy bugger – I truly, truly am. But our partnership goes way beyond business. We are truly good friends. In fact, he is like a brother to me. He’s supported me through some difficult times and I’ve supported him too. Sure, we have our disagreements, and when it comes to the crunch, he can take his mate’s hat off and so can I, and we’ll get down to it, but above all we’re friends and that’s the most important thing.