I was blown away last night to see Stevie Wright on This Is Your Life. During the late Eighties I worked for a while as Stevies live sound engineer, alongside my brother Brett on monitors and My Pal Brian ™ on lights, and I have wonderful memories of some great gigs as well as some downright strange ones.
He was (I think) still on the needle in those days and was very definitley on the turps in a big way and was quite a handful. Even so, he was still very much a household name and drew decent crowds. The band, Hard Road, consisted of Peter Northcote (sax, keys, guitar), Bruno Renzella (guitar), Vic Young (bass) and Paul DeMarco (drums) and one or two others who slip my mind.
They were outstanding in both musical ability and counselling skills. It was a major effort sometimes just to get Stevie onto the stage in a reasonable condition to perform and the guys showed endless patience(usually!).
The guys started picking him up quite early in the day to get him to the gig before he got too blind. They would then keep him occupied and soberish backstage until show time. This worked for a while until the cunning bugger figured that he could just get the crowd to buy his drinks. “Who’s gunna buy Stevie a Southern Comfort then?” would be the cry. Half a dozen punters would then head to the bar and buy him drinks. The look on the faces of the band was simply priceless. What can you do to help someone who is determined to trash themselves?
Poor old Stevie didn’t have much of a voice left by this stage and it became increasingly difficult to get his voice to sit in the mix at a decent level. Brett had the worst of it as he looked after on-stage sound which was…loud! One night Stevie was having particular trouble hearing himself in the monitors so he decided he would kick them off the front of the stage, as you do. Classic rock ‘n roll tantrum! Anyway, being the professional he is, Brett wanders out from side stage nonchalantly and puts the speakers back on stage. Well, Stevie manages to kick them off again at which point Brett decides to unplug them & remove them. Picture the scene… Band wailing, punters dancing, singer fuming and Brett standing at the front of the stage giving Stevie a right bollocking. Common sense eventually prevailed and the rest of the show went well. During the packup I noticed out of the corner of my eye that one of the band members had Brett bailed up side stage and seemed to be giving him a gobfull. Thinking there could be ill feeling about the incident, I wandered a bit closer just in case and managed to hear words to the effect of: “Why didn’t you hit the bastard? If that had been my gear he kicked, I’d have floored him!” Brett explained that it wouldn’t look good on his resume that he had knocked out Stevie Wright.
One day I’ll tell you about the Stevie gig where I had to leave the mixing desk to punch on with some of the crowd! I’ve still got the scar where my tooth went through my mouth just below my bottom lip. I’ll bet the other bloke’s still peeing blood though!
Thanks for the fun times and classic memories Stevie. Stay straight. I hope you find the peace you are looking for.
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I remember supporting Stevie one night down in the old Lucy’s Tavern (this was when Lucy’s was in Pitt St, before it moved to Castlereagh St) some time in the late 1980′s. (You weren’t doing his sound then, Mark, Russell Grigg was his sound guy). We got to the gig and Stevie’s band’s gear was already set up on the tiny stage, and I was using one of those big Fender Bassman rigs at the time, so Russell told me it would be OK to use Stevie’s bass rig. It was probably the best bass sound I ever had onstage! Anyway, that’s beside the point really. I just wanted to mention that when Stevie came onstage he was absolutely MINDBLOWING! Seriously! This was one of the best gigs I have ever seen. His band was absolutely smoking, and Stevie, once he hits the stage, just seems to have boundless reserves of energy that, if you had seen him half an hour before, you would not believe he had! Like you mentioned mate, his band had their hands full just getting him onstage still in a functioning state most nights! But with Stevie, when the magic happens, it REALLY happens!
the amazing stevie wright ,,,,,,,,,
such a sad waste of immense talent
the temptations of drugs and booze are to hard to resist for some
thankyou for your past magic stevie
you will always be australian rock royalty !!!!!!!!!!
I too think Stevie Wright is an amazing talent, the comments I have read about ‘drugs and booze’ destroying people, prompts me to say that, as a worker with people in recovery, the drug treatment programs can be as bad as the drugs themselves, particularly methadone, which strips people of any health they may have left. I am really annoyed when people speak of those with drug and alcohol addictions as if they are heroes if they function normally to get up and ‘entertain’ everybody. They are heroes simply to have survived a system that drugs people into compliance with methadone and other script drugs so to minimize their addictions on the rest of us in society. Stevie Wright has survived a ‘system’ as well as an addiction.
Havent seen him for a while and Stevie had his personal problems but he was a great guy and loved life,his personality reminded me so much of Bon, Stevie was a good friend to have, and lots of fun, did a song now and again with him at gigs here and there, I remember getting Stevie to a gig at The Villawood Hotel just before time to go on, we’d been out on my ( and Jackie Woodwards)(also known as Willow) boat all day on Botany Bay drinking Southern Comfort,no drugs involved and for a period of time I helped Steve to absolve from his habit, probably because we did stuff took his mind from those things, we even did a Capt. Cook landing at the real spot for a laugh, Stevie fell off the boat and nearly broke his leg,the support band were Overload, who were looking for a singer, Stevie came back to the band room and said they were looking for a new singer and it should be me, I ended up joining them and we were soon referred to as Sydney Rock n Roll Outlaws by a coupla journo’s,anyway that night at Stevies gig I rubbed Paul Demarco, Stevies drummer up the wrong way because Steve and I were sloshed, Stevie warned me to back off regained conscessness to the knowledge that Paul was Boxer, where ever you are Steve, be happy. “Nielo”.
PS. Steve, your Talent will go down in history as immeasurable.”Nielo”.
Hmmm, I remember him v well indeed. I remember Bruno Renzella and I carrying him up the stairs after he fell down the drainpipe 25 ft or so trying to get into his 1st floor flat,(in Balmain) he had lost the keys or something. He totally shattered his leg, a dreadful mess.It was 3am and he was coming back from some photo shoot I think, in snakeskin boots or some such thing. I remember hearing him yell my name over and over until I woke up so I could help him.I lived in the flat underneath. I remember him at Christmas dinner, when he didnt have anywhere else to go, on the list goes. I remember watching him play cricket in the backyard with my son and then putting up with the v bitchy gossip from some ‘groupie’ hangers on. Stevie was/is very intelligent but generally quite of lot of ‘brain sizzling’ had occurred (and at times he seemed the exact opposite of intelligent as he would listen to crap that some people told him about occult/religious issues)and he was/is a master of the manipulative art.In his good moments he could discuss any subject with wisdom and sparkling intellect and he could at times be fun, when he wasnt demanding things non stop. He has a good heart, but used to be quite paranoid at times, brought on by huge amts of assorted drugs and booze, (yes the Southern comfort). He would wake in mornings and first thing reach for the ‘comfort’ by the bed. Awesome in its ghastliness. My memories are those of a non muso around musos so its a totally different viewpoint.I was so glad to get away from that whole scene in balmain 22 odd years ago, it had toxic elements. And the son is now a uni tutor amongst other things. Roll on Stevie
Sounds like you have a few stories mate!! Stevie is alive and hanging in there and will be at the opening of the show.
Scotty
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