So, after playing at Hugh and Debra Lee’s wedding a few years earlier, I received a phone call from my friend Alyce Platt to perform at Hugh's mother-in-law's 70th birthday. Alyce had put a great band together and they’d asked if I’d front it. Hugh had rewritten the words to one of the songs from A Boy from Oz for his Mother in Law and wanted to know if he could sing it with the band?!?! After considering this for 1 nano second I said, “Ooooh OK”.
A little while later I received a call from Hugh to talk about the song and first of all he asked if it'd be okay and I said something like, “I think you’ll be OK”.
He was still Stateside and wouldn’t be back in Oz until just before the event, so we didn't get a chance to rehearse it, but he sent me a copy of the song and I think we did a quick run with him at soundcheck from memory - I can't remember exactly. I did say to him that he'd need to have a second song ready because there was no way he was going to get away with singing just one song. He said, “Do you really think so?” I probably said, “Trust me” and he agreed. We decided he was just going to sing some Old rock and roll song - we could “wing it” on the night!
Hugh was in very safe hands as we had a fantastic band - James Sandon on saxophone, James Black on guitar, Jake Mason on keyboards, Steve Hadley on Bass and Tony Floyd on drums.
There were about 50 or 60 guests and the event was held in a Federation Square venue ( I think it became the Racing Museum and is now part of the NGV).
We played a very chilled “cocktail” set or two and then the speeches started. My memory is a bit fuzzy at this point, but I think Hugh made his speech and invited the band up to perform his special tribute. He sang the song (I can't remember which song it was), but it brought the house down of course! The crowd had jumped up to the front of the stage and were baying for MORE. I was standing side of stage and he looked at me and shrugged his shoulders, so I jumped up to save him!!!
So we did the aforementioned Old Rocker, I think it was a Rolling stone song or something and Hugh just absolutely rocked out. He showed a side of himself I'd never seen before and I don’t think anyone else had either! He had a great time and spent the whole 40 minutes on stage – he did the whole set with the band. We were just jamming rock and roll songs and he was singing along going absolutely crazy having a great time. The Crowd loved it and went a bit crazy too.
We had a a nice group shot of the band together with him and Debra Lee. Unfortunately Hugh had just had his hair cut into a crew cut so he's barely recognisable and also unfortunately the photos that were taken are a bit blurry because my dear mate Pete Fearn was doing the sound and he took them. He was so nervous that he was doing sound for Hugh Jackman that he got all the photos blurry but they're better than no photos at all. Some other time I'll tell you the story about not just the wedding but also the time I bumped into him when he hosted a Starlight foundation ball
The end