Claire’s Performance Journal

Most of my friends know that I’m not performing full time, but still have occasional gig in my new district. Heading up to the 'Gong end of November and will be performing at Thirroul. Will put details on this page when it gets closer. The year is rushing by. We’ve been in Victoria nine months already.
Here’s one of the song Glenn and I recorded back in lockdown in Shellharbour.

Cold Cold Town This is a bit of history to share with my friends. I performed all over Australia from 1976 until about 2016. Whew! 40 years and thousands of songs! I forget how many times I sang American Pie in bar

Looking through my memorabilia, found this....

Just up the road from our house..

Gettting ready for our gig this Friday. Hope to see some friendly faces there.

Illawarra Folk Club presents The Next Journey - Claire & Glenn's Farewell with Fred Smith and George Mann, Wollongong, Fri 4th Nov 2022, 7:30 pm - 10:30 pm AEDT | Humanitix THE NEXT JOURNEY CONCERT CLAIRE ROBERTS AND GLENN BOWKER are moving on in the journey of life and joining with Fred Smith and George Mann to create a musical treat before leaving the Illawarra. Not many Folk Clubs have institutions but we have had one for well over 30 years and that is Claire Robert...

Glenn and I are getting ready to move to Victoria! We hope you will join us at the City Diggers Club for our final Folk Club gig on Friday 4 November. Please mark the date and I will post an event when the tickets go on sale.🌷🎼

Lucky to play a few tunes with Hamish Davidson at an open mic in country Victoria. Stoked to play with an accomplished fiddle player, no rehearsal of course.

First song for the new album.

We of the Never Never film clip A song about the loneliness of living in outback Australia. Lyrics and music by Claire Roberts.

Have recorded the basics of six new songs. Once lockdown is over, the other instruments will be added with thanks to my musco friends.

Years ago, I was on the way to a Sydney gig. At Menai sitting in the traffic, I was wishing I would break down so that I didn’t have to do the gig. A revelation for me really, because, if I was thinking this way, it’s time to get out of the industry!

My wish came true. I got as far as Alfords Point Road and got a flat tyre. Well, there so much peak hour traffic chaos but I managed to pull into a by in the road. All my sound gear was in the boot and I couldn’t get to the spare without taking it out...did I mention it was raining? I rang the Wollongong agent so that she could replace me at the gig which was in a dive of a pub somewhere near Parramatta and the NRMA rescued me.

The agent was so angry and never booked me again. No great loss because she was booking two of the worst pubs I had ever played in but still, a strange reaction to my dilemma. More about the pubs in another story!

This was the beginning of me making changes, getting re-educated and slowly easing my way out of the industry.

Hi friends. I am running the trivia night at Torys Pub in Kiama every Monday evening. 7pm start, cash prizes and a great way to spend a Monday evening. Hope you can join me.

I just had this pop up in my FB memories. Still relevant today......I posted this 4 years ago. BTW I have a gig coming up on the 16th April at folk club, supporting Michael Fix, legend guitar player....hope to see you there.
From 2017:
Just some thoughts about my time in the music industry. Read on if it interests you.

(I am just editing this to add a note with a comment about some of the fabulous gigs I have done over the years with some wonderful audiences. My comments below are just explaining why its time to hang up the PA and do the gigs I choose to do)

Last night I sang three songs at the City Diggers in Wollongong for Illawarra Folk Club.. a Scottish song that was recorded by Judy Collins - Farewell to Tarwathie, Dan Fogelberg's Same Old Lang Syne and Nanci Griffiths' Trouble in Our Fields. So good to have a seated and receptive audience and a good sound guy. I am at the point when I don't want to cart gear around and do long gigs. That's not to say that I wouldn't do one of the shows like a friend's party where I sing what I want to sing . Over the recent few years I have still been doing bigger venues and I find that it's unsatisfying and stressful. You never know what your audience will be, if they are the right age group etc. In some places I work in I had to set up in a tiny space and hate the way the venue managers treat me. This is a common bitch among my peers. Last year, Glen and I did a gig at Wests Illawarra, playing to no one except a couple of uninterested punters; however, the staff who were quite young but seemed to enjoy it. It takes ages to set up for these kinds of gigs, is hit and miss and gives me little satisfaction. I often feel like I am the wrong person for the venue. However, I do love playing with Glen.

I've had a great career but I've always had to sing songs that other people want, and not the ones I want to do..like the ones I sang last night. Mostly people in pubs and clubs are not interested in those kinds of songs as they are not mainstream. The repertoire needed in clubs can be boring, repetitious and narrow. I got sick of singing things like Sweet Caroline for the older crowd and finding that my song list was out of date for the young crowds. So, if I sing at festivals, open mics and at the folk club, I can do what I want to do. Those songs I sang last night are my favourite kind of music and are folky enough for the folk club. I find that the folk club audiences are happy to hear songs that are not strictly folk and request my originals too. My fellow musicians Pat Drummond and Allan Caswell have had the right approach over the years by building their entire career on original material. I bet they never had to sing Roadhouse Blues, Mustang Sally or Stairway to Heaven every night!

The act I supported last night was brilliant. The East Pointers from Canada. I bought the CD and will listen when I get a chance. I thought the other support act was pretty good too, great harmonies. Sorry guys, didn't catch the name of your duo. Would love to hear them with a full band.

Thanks for reading this far. ❤️

Follow up to the Doug Dragon story. I tracked him down in Hawaii and gave him a call. He’s 81 and living in a hospice suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. We reminisced for about 20 minutes...not sure what the call would have cost! Will find out on my next bill.

Here is a bit of memorabilia. Invitation to the Mad Max 3 Beyond Thunderdome wrap party. The invitation came from my friend Frank Lennon (stunt man mentioned in a previous post) Frank combined his birthday party with the wrap party. Lots of Aust actors there including Mel Gibson and kids with unusual hair styles, left over from the filming. Tina Turner didn't come. I didn't meet Mel, but smiled at him as I brushed past him on my way to the loo. I wonder if he was doing that old trick of locating himself near the women's toilets so that eventually he can see every female in the room?

Wow, just received my royalties for music played on radio. Exciting days. Might shout myself half a cup of coffee.

Here's me in the 80s. That's Judy Stone walking past, Wayne Horsborough and Mort Fist. Mort used to come to my gigs and play the harmonica. He died a long time back. Fun days! And yes, I am smoking in this picture. I think this might have been the wrap party in Sydney for a fundraiser album with a song written by Allan Caswell. It was around the time of Feed the World. The song was called The Garden, Australia Too, raising money to help the Freedom from Hunger campaign for Ethiopia.

I am in Lithgow for a work expo. The last time I was here was when I was singing in the Workers Club which is where I am staying. The day before I did a gig here back in the 90s I was bitten on the foot by a bee and had a terrible reaction to it so I was on crutches. I remember driving from Blacktown where I did an afternoon gig and then driving to Lithgow with an ice pack on my foot, and sitting on stage with an ice pack on my foot for the whole gig.
It's lovely here. I didn't see it properly when I used to come here to perform as I always arrived in time to set up my sound gear and left in the dark.

You have been stuck at home for months..... Time to change that! My band has been busy rehearsing for our show and we would love to have a 'Covid' full house. The ticket includes a meal. What else are going to do on a Saturday night?

Adult Folk Club Member- Entry + Meal $38
Adult Non Folk Club Member - Entry + Meal $43
Saturday night 31st October 2020 at City Diggers Club

BOOK TICKETS AT:
https://events.humanitix.com/live-in-hope-concert-sat-31st-october-2020/tickets
OR PHONE: 1300 887 034

Live in Hope Concert Sat 31st October 2020, Wollongong, 31st of October | Humanitix The Fourth Concert in the Illawarra Folk Club Covid Concert Series. And what better way to celebrate hope, than a wonderful cast of local performers: The witty Kay Proudlove, the captivating Claire Roberts & the Melbas and the rollicking band, Chord-eaux. Kay Proudlove: Engaging, emotional and witty...

Here I go, out of retirement again. Two gigs coming up. The first one is at the City Diggers Club in Wollongong on 31 October. Russell Hannah, President of the Illwarra Folk Club, said that I reminded him of Dame Nellie Melba who became known for her many comeback concerts. Seemed like a good name for my backing band so we are Claire & the Melbas. Backline consists of John Nichols, Greg Costello and my hubby, Glen Bowker. Book if you would like to come. :) More about the second gig in a second post coming soon.

Live in Hope Concert Sat 31st October 2020, Wollongong, 31st of October | Humanitix The Fourth Concert in the Illawarra Folk Club Covid Concert Series. And what better way to celebrate hope, than a wonderful cast of local performers: The witty Kay Proudlove, the captivating Claire Roberts & the Melbas and the rollicking band, Chord-eaux. Kay Proudlove: Engaging, emotional and witty...

It’s coming up to the anniversary of my trivia night I used to run at Appin. I hosted a night there every Wednesday night for ten years between 2003 and 2013. The only time I took off was over the Christmas break. Up until the last couple of years, I wrote all of the quizzes then later bought them from a couple of Sydney companies as I took day work and ran out of time to write them. At Appin, we had theme nights and everyone got behind them. I hosted at heaps of other venues too but this was the longest run and I still have some great friendships in Appin.

One night in the early nineties I was double booked with Jeff Fenech.
Double bookings are the bane of a musicians life. You turn up at a pub with good intentions, car loaded with gear, only to find another performer setting up on the stage. Usually it was a venues fault. Some venues would do some bookings themselves and 'farm out' a few nights to an agent, inevitably causing confusion. On this particular night I walked into the pub, probably the Marrickville Hotel, holding my guitar, and the room full of people, mostly men propped on the bar, turned and muttered words along the lines of ‘you’ve gotta be kidding!' Apparently Jeff had a comeback fight on that night and I was booked at his local pub. Every TV in the place was on, ready for the broadcast of the fight, wherever it was.
The manager apologised profusely to me and said, don’t worry, you will get paid, but don’t play tonight, so I joined the mob at the bar for a while, but, with no interest in boxing, headed down to The Rocks and watched a band play.

My parents always supported my music career. I had classical voice lessons, steel guitar lessons (my brother and sisters had music lessons too). In November 1973 I married a Ballarat boy and he obtained a prestigious place at the University of Western Australia so early 1974 we moved to WA. I started my solo career there. Heaps of venues operating and employing one-out musicians.

In about 1978, I went home to Heathcote Vic to visit the old folks (I was single by then) and while there I picked up a gig at a Bendigo restaurant. Mum and Dad came to the gig and I think the cost of their meal probably paid for my fee! The picture is of Mum and dad at the Punt and Pint bar at the Menzies hotel in the middle 80s. The other fellow in the picture, Russell, was a often there and a great supporter of my career.

Frank Lennon

Over the years I met some interesting people at gigs, famous, infamous and people like you and me! Actor Gary Sweet used to play pool at one of my venues, the entire Comanchero bike gang would come to the Oasis Hotel in Bankstown during my Saturday afternoon gigs and out to the Wallacia Hotel, and this man, Frank Lennon, became a good friend for a while.

Frank's company did the stunts for the film Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome. Frank invited me to his 40th birthday party which he combined with the wrap party for the film. Many of the extras were there including kids, with there hair still done in the fashion for the movie, along with Mel Gibson (didn't get to meet him but brushed past him as I went to the loo!) but not Tina Turner unfortunately.

I have a great memory of Frank. He rang me one day and said, 'Come down to Milson's Point, they are going to set fire to me'. I couldn't make it, but I saw it on the news. He was trying out some new gel for the fire brigade. He walked through some flames and straight up to the news camera and said, 'That's cool!'. When I saw him next, I stirred a bit over the comment and he said, 'You don't know the half of it. My leg was on fire'. This was so typical of Frank. He was covered in burns and had had a lot of broken bones over the years from his stunt work.

I really liked this man and was sad to hear that he had died. It was very ironic that he fell to his death. I was told that there where white ants in the railing of the balcony and it gave way when he leaned on it.

I just found some footage of him on this site: https://reuters.screenocean.com/record/1056232

There's other footage on other sites as well but it's too painful to watch – it’s a stunt that went wrong. When you are watching Australian films from the seventies and eighties, you often see the company mentioned in the credits for stunt work.

When I was singing in a bar in Perth many years ago, I had a soldier in full dress uniform sit at the front table, drink beer and cry for a couple of hours. I found it quite disconcerting, as you can imagine. Towards the end of the evening, he came up to me and requested He Aint Heavy, He’s My Brother because he had just been to his brother's funeral. I almost didn’t sing it for him because I was afraid that the song might be his undoing, but then it occurred to me that, when one is feeling down, a song like that could provide quite a release. I wrote this song in the car on the way home from that gig and it remains one of my favourites.

A SAD SONG Words & Music Claire Roberts. When I was singing in a bar in Perth many years ago, I had a soldier in full dress uniform sit at the front table, drink beer and cry for a couple of hours. I found it qu

Over the years, I have at times been treated as an inconvenience at a venue and, other times, like a star, neither of which is true, of course.

I mentioned that there were two times people asked for my autograph. One time was the Peter, Paul and Mary concert and the other time was at a little club in Riverstone, NSW. I attribute this to the president of the club. My musician friends will know that, often you turn up at a club to play, and the most instruction you get is the bar manager waving vaguely at a corner of the room, telling you 'There's a power point over there; you might have to move a couple of tables and chairs'. You look over to see a stacked up pile of unused furniture and maybe a dusty bain-marie.

At the Riverstone Bowling Club, everyone went out of their way to look after the musicians. The thing I remember best is the President of the club always waited until I was set up and ready to sing, then took the microphone, got the audiences attention and introduced me as if I was a visiting international star. It set the mood for the gig. BTW Dave Gorr at The Vault in Port Kembla does the same.

One particular gig at Riverstone, someone asked me for a photograph and I had some photos with me. The next thing I look up and I had a row of people lined up in front of me looking for autographed photos. A very surreal moment. I see that the club is now closed. Pity.

The purpose of this page is to catalogue my years in the music industry. I thought maybe my son and grandkids might be interested one day and thanks to my friends who are reading it. Inspires me to write some more and saves me writing a book. 📖

Bowling club to close The Riverstone Bowling Club will be closed down at the end of November after the Riverstone Schofields Memorial Club decided they could not afford to cover its losses anymore.

I think my first public performance was in primary school when we did a mini version of Mary Poppins. We always had teachers straight out of teachers college come to our Bullarook primary school. They were great teachers. I think the teacher who organised our performance was Ken Stent who encouraged me to sing. I still remember trying to reach the bottom notes in Feed the Birds. The bottom end of my register wasn't very strong until I had classical voice training. Anyone my age will remember the Let's Join In songbook at school. I still remember those songs.

Well, you can’t change history so I may as well tell this story. My band, Pinchgut, performed at the Sydney Art Gallery in about 1986 and we met Rolf Harris who was the main act. We invited him to come to our Jolly Swagman Show at the Argyle Tavern the next night and, to our delight, he showed up. The management at the tavern were over the moon to have him come to the venue so we were in the good books with them. We invited Rolf to join us on stage and the picture is of Rolf, Mike and me singing Botany Bay. Rolf also played out wobble board.

He was a very charismatic man and an outrageous flirt. A year later, my band was performing at the wool shed in Picton and I saw a picture of Rolf on their photo wall. I pointed it out to a passing waitress and she rolled her eyes and made some disparaging remark about him which confirmed my experience with him.

The people in the picture, left to right: Mike Canning, me, Rolf, Mark Singer and Stuart Cowell.

Here’s another support gig story.
In about 1987, Peter, Paul and Mary came to Australia for their Anniversary Tour. Stewart Cowell, pictured backstage rehearsing with our fiddle player, Mark Singer, got us the gig through connection with Kevin Jacobsen, the promoter (Col Joy's family member and promoter). We were offered three gigs, Sydney Entertainment Centre, the Sydney Opera House and Canberra Theatre. We had to turn down the opera house because of a prior commitment.

When we arrived at the Entertainment Centre, I was overwhelmed by the size of it. There was a truck in the middle of the floor and, from the stage, it looked like a Matchbox toy. One of the boys, Peter or Paul, I can’t remember which, was doing a sound check. It was the most meticulous sound check I had ever seen. He sat at the console back from the stage and tweaked the graphics for well over an hour.

Our set went down a treat even though we were so hyped up that our first song was way too fast. From the stage, everything was dark in the audience... We could only see the people in the first couple of rows.... but I found a person in the distance who was wearing glasses so I kept sweeping the audience while I was singing and kept bringing my line of site back to that person, pretending it was my mother! This way, I got over any stage fright. That person must have been confused that I seemed to be singing exclusively to them!

The applause we got was the most I have ever experienced. It kept going and going. After the show Peter or Paul asked about the song The Diamantina Drover. I believe they were thinking of learning it. We loaded our gear outside the Entertainment Centre and found a small fan base waiting for us to sign autographs! This is the first of two times that’s happened to me. More about the second time later.

The next day, the promoter asked us to reduce our thirty minute set to twenty minutes but we refused. We think this was because we were so well received. Not sure! We travelled down to Canberra for our second show. I have the suspicion that the sound guy sabotaged our onstage sound, maybe because we weren’t very cooperative about the set length. It still went over well, just difficult for us on stage. We went to the back seats of the theatre and watched the whole show but PP&M had bought us a bottle of wine which we had consumed from the side of stage with another one we had bought ourselves, so we were a bit sloshed by the end of the night. Mark was sober and he drove us to our rather swish hotel, Hotel Diplomat. None of us knew Canberra so what should have been a ten minute drive turned in 45 minutes around the same roundabouts several times. No GPS in those days.

Next day we had breakfast with PP&M, well at least at adjacent tables. It was a thrill for me to perform with them. My first ever vinyl album was one of their's and I had them autograph it. It’s one of the few vinyls I have kept other then half a dozen of my own album. I had been so hyped up about the performance that the next week I was really flat. It goes to show how adrenaline can effect you.

The photos are from Sydney Entertainment Centre, taken from side of stage and backstage.

We are in Batemans Bay for the weekend, taking the grandies to Mogo Zoo tomorrow. Back in the nineties my agent Jaybees offered me a gig in Batemans Bay, supporting Kate Ceberano at the bowling club. It was an Easter weekend and I was already working down the coast, I think at Greenwell Point or similar, so I booked a motel in BB ...rather expensive... and headed down. When I turned up at the BB Bowling Club auditorium late in the afternoon, the crew had just finished setting up, the band had done a sound check and the sound guy having a break. I introduced myself and Kate’s manager looked puzzled. They hadn’t expected a support act so I showed him my confirmation sheet (thanks Narrell for having my paperwork in order). Kate’s manager said that if I wanted to play I had to cover the cost of two sound guys. This was their usual procedure. I replied, 'look all I have to do is plug in my guitar and use a mic,' but he dug in. I said, 'I won’t play. It’s not worth it. I’ve already paid for an overpriced motel room and two sound guys would take more than my entire fee'.

After a conversation with the club manager, the club offered to pay for one of the sound guys. This would still leave me out of pocket, so I refused. This whole conversation was all very polite. Kate’s manager explained to me that bands paid for the privilege of supporting Kate to further their career and I explained that I was just a working musician not looking to be famous.

In the end, I played my 40 minute set and didn’t pay for the sound crew. I met Kate briefly. She was very gracious. The audience, such that it was because most people didn’t turn up for the support, especially an unknown, was polite. I watched a bit of Kate’s show and that was the end of that episode. Another story to add to the many. The photo is of Kate back then.

The day after we arrived back from our Balinese gig in the middle 80s, my Australiana band, Pinchgut, was booked to perform at a luncheon for Doyles, the prestigious restaurant in Watson’s Bay, Sydney. It was their 100th anniversary and the who’s who of Sydney social life were there; people from TV such as Kerrie Anne Kennelly, radio, politics and other minor celebrities. I think I recall Bubbles Fisher. Everywhere I turned there was a famous face. Bob and Hazel Hawke were there.

We were put at a table with some 'old money' people from Woollahra and I chatted to one older woman about how beautiful Bali was but she described the poverty and hardship and I felt we were talking about two different countries. Interesting to have two different perspectives. I guess it depends on your background how you view things.

Glen and I were just driving through Liverpool. I had a gig at the Railway Hotel in Liverpool in about 1985. I had spent the afternoon sewing a new pair of tailored black pants because I couldn't find any I liked in the shops but, as soon as I walked in the door of the hotel, I realised I was overdressed. The opening words to me by the duty manager were, 'If anybody gives you a hard time tell them to f #$! off'. A great welcome. I was loading in my gear when a rather imposing young woman came up to me and said, 'Don't worry if anyone give you a hard time I'll take them out!' I must have looked as though I needed protection.

Later on I was in the ladies toilet when a young woman came in and she was crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said, 'This is the first time that I have been out since my baby was born 5 months ago and I know that my boyfriend will beat me up when I get home.' I told her I would find a phone number of a women's shelter for her but when I went to the bar to get the phone book, the bar person said, 'Just ignore her, she's here every night and tells people the same story.'

I was set up in a back lounge area with hardly any audience so during my break I went into the front bar. I was standing talking to a group of people at a table when some children outside the hotel threw in a handful of firecrackers. Everybody in the lounge started diving out the doors, under tables and behind the bar thinking it was someone with a shotgun whereas I just stood there thinking 'Kids with firecrackers!'

You won't be surprised to know that was the one and only time I worked there and as Glen said, 'what is it in us that makes us work in this environment?' I'm not saying that there wasn't a lot of fun gigs but mostly my memories are triggered by these unusual ones. I don't want to cast aspersions on the hotel now... It could be a good place to hang out. Has anybody been there recently?

My brother and I used to play at old time dances with Dad at small halls in our district. Dad played the button accordion and I played lap steel, known as a Hawaiian guitar, and Lynton on the electric guitar. Dad played old time songs some of which he learnt from his father. Here’s a song I wrote about a trip Glen and I did when we were visiting home and I saw one of the halls where the Roberts Family Band played. The whole story is in the lyrics.

- 01 THE LEONARDS HILL DANCE From the CD The Leonards Hill Hall. A compilation of originals and some favourite covers.

This is a picture of my father, Don Roberts, who died on Wednesday. His and my mother’s love of music is the reason the Roberts clan is still heavily involved in music in many ways, either on a performance level, volunteering or just in our own lounge rooms. We grew up with music in our household and at our family gatherings throughout our lives. When the Roberts clan have a celebration, many of the cousins are on stage. We are all grateful for the man and the music. 🎵

A bit more about breaking down in Gunbower, Victoria when we were relocating to Sydney. It was late at night, maybe about midnight, and the old Holden was overheating. I rang my sister who lived on the other side of the Murray and she headed out to rescue us. In the meanwhile, we sat and waited in the car and a group of young people who had been out for the night (not sure where because there is nothing much in Gunbower, maybe Swan Hill) were passing by and asked if we needed help. I told them we were ok, waiting for help and then said, ‘I have some cousins around here somewhere'. It turned out the young man was engaged to my cousin Susie Roberts. Eric decided to stay with the car because we had just about everything we owned in it and I went back to Irene's.

In the morning Irene and I were trying to figure out where to get a new water pump for the car on a Sunday when the phone rang. It was Uncle Mick, Dad’s younger brother, saying, 'All good, we have Eric here and he’s had a shower and some breakfast. The boys have an old Holden in the backyard and they’ve changed the water pump.' My relatives to the rescue. Our previous breakdown going across the Nullarbor was because we had retreads that warped on the hot road. We were pretty broke at the time! Within a month of arriving in Sydney I had five gigs a week and the rest is history... all of which I will keep sharing on this page.

In 1980 everyone was telling me I should go to Sydney to further my career so we loaded up the Holden and headed across the Nullarbor. The first picture is the front yard of our house for the going away party. The next picture is the view we had across the Nullarbor because the car broke down and we had to catch a ride with an empty car carrier. There was no room for us in the cabin so we sat in the Holden all the way across. Highly illegal of course but we ducked down under the dash whenever we saw police.

It was a slow old trip and we slept out on top of our lambswool seat covers under the stars on the way across. We had the car repaired in Adelaide and then headed over to see my sister Irene in Moama but broke down again in Gunbower Vic. My cousins who lived near by came to the rescue and put in a new water pump and we continued our trip after a overnight break. We decided to drive up the Hume overnight and that was a disaster because of all of the trucks on the road. We annoyed the truck drivers because we were driving too slow for them and we arrived in the outskirts of Sydney in peak hour traffic, exhausted and no idea how to get to Woollahra.

I’ve added some pictures from the going away party. Jim, your in one of these. It was a sixties theme because I found the dress in a op shop and wanted to wear it!