We searched in Myer, Grace Bros. and Sydney Wide before we bought a ‘Cadiz’ suite for our bedroom, from Col Buchan Discounts on the Kingsway, in Miranda. It is of a dark colour and cost us eight hundred and ninety-eight dollars. We have arranged to have it delivered after our new carpet is laid. We walked home in a jovial mood, in spite of a heavy overcast that threatened to drench us.
Tiki watched the film, “Tarzan And The Valley Of Gold”, from 1965, which features Mike Henry, as Tarzan, and Nancy Kovack. Cliff Richard was supposed to appear on “The Mike Walsh Show”, but cancelled his appearance. Jade Hurley stood in for him at the last minute and performed a medley of Roy Orbison’s hits.
This afternoon we set out for the city to attend Cliff Richard’s concert. It began at half past six in the Regent Theatre, in George Street near to the south-west corner of its intersection with Bathurst Street.
A young woman, with long blonde hair, screamed five ‘songs’, and, after an interval of fifteen minutes, Cliff appeared before the mostly young audience. Dressed in black trousers, a black sequined T-shirt, a white coat and shoes he began by singing his first hit, “Move It”, which he originally recorded in 1958.
Unfortunately, for us, he then deviated towards performing up-tempo new songs, thereby getting right away from the seventy or so hits already under his belt in his native Britain. I was personally disappointed that he did not perform more ballads although he did sing what he said was his favourite song, “Miss You Nights”, which was released last year.
Cliff was supported by a band of five or six members, a pianist and two vocalists. Everyone on stage was male. Terry Britten, who along with The Little River Band’s Glenn Shorrock, was a member of the Australian group, The Twilights, in the mid-to-late 1960s, was present. He wrote Cliff’s hit of last year, “Devil Woman”, which has really opened doors for the singer in the United States after nearly two decades of endeavour.
In fact, “Devil Woman” was the last song of the evening, apart from a solitary number, performed as an encore. I attended Cliff’s concert in October of 1973 at the Sydney Opera House, which was held on the evening of the day after Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II had officially opened the building. Cliff appeared on a double bill with Harry Secombe, and I must say I enjoyed that concert far more than this evening’s.
The concert finished by five minutes to nine after those on stage had thrown streamers into that part of the audience below us. We crossed George Street and sat upstairs in the Parisienne Pussycat Restaurant. Two servings of raisin toast, a hot Vienna chocolate and a cappucino cost us two dollars and seventy-five cents in total.
The crowd, which was assembling for Cliff’s second concert, blocked the footpath outside the Regent and members of the police force were on hand to guide passers-by round it.
Tiki stated that she had been quite unimpressed by Cliff’s performance, adding that he was “too in love with himself” and the audio “too loud”.