Last dance of a happy man
The Sunnyboys shone in the early 80s before vanishing, seemingly forever. But love and serendipity reunited them and we got to hear and see the band play for 10 more years.
Well everything looks so grand
From the position I stand, yeah.Happy Man, The Sunnyboys, 1981.
The Showroom at Twin Towns is full of people we used to know. It’s January 13, the first night of the Sunnyboys’ Last Dance tour. The man ahead in the ‘merch’ queue is wearing the same Mambo shirt he wore to Sunnyboys’ Sydney gigs in the early 1980s. Vintage. No way could I wear clothes from the 80s, even if still I had them. When we tell him we were at school with Peter and Jeremy Oxley and Bil Bilson, he is incurious, his memories tied to the heady nights with his mates and dates.
On February 18, 2023, the Sunnyboys played their last gig at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney.
‘Sydney’s biggest Gen X nostalgiagasm’ is how a tweet about the band’s last gig summed it up. Even ‘Albo’, the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, was there.
Gen X? Yes, who listened on the radio and went to gigs as soon as they were of age or could pass for being of age. But I’ll just say it, baby boomers, too. Especially at Twin Towns on the Tweed, Coolangatta border where people saw Peter, Jeremy and Bil play in Wooden Horse and Foreplay (or was it Fourplay?) who played at local pubs, and at school socials, our Year 12 formal and the post-HSC exam party at the old house in Kingy (Kingscliff) where the young cool teachers lived.
At school, the boys and I were never friends, never enemies, and never hung out. The Oxley boys’ dad Eric was my high school art teacher and we still see him and his partner Betsy, who gave me a job in the local library when I was 15, over fish and chips lunches and Scrabble games.
A couple of years after school finished The Sunnyboys became sorta famous. As the youngest reporter at a North Coast local paper, I got to go to gigs and interview bands and interviewed the band at the Sawtell RSL.
Then they disappeared again and by then living overseas I missed a couple of reunion gigs. We never expected to hear them again. But a series of serendipitous events changed that to bring Jeremy back from the wilds. His and Mary’s love story, the reconnection of the brothers, family and band members. The story can be found here.
Here Comes The Sun
When the man in the Mambo shirt reaches the sales table at Twin Towns he buys a pile of merch. That’ll be 200-and-something bucks said the sales guy with hair that’s probably been long since the 80s. When it’s our turn, Nat buys a small-brimmed khaki hat with a sun logo for me and I buy a white canvas tote bag with the same logo for her. The exchange neatly justifies buying what we each want. We are Gen Sandwich women amidst elderly parents, grown-up kids, and husbands who climb ladders forgetting they are no longer 30.
When we reach our seats, the support band is already playing. Nat pops plugs into her ears. I envy her those plugs amid the choruses Die, yuppie, die and Kill, Kill, Kill. But their fans are dancing and singing along, revelling in a nostalgia that we don’t know or feel.
So we wait. Eventually, the Painters and Dockers stop work. Intermission. The crews swap out the instruments and gear. Time to fill a plastic cup that fits neatly in a holder in the armrest of our red seats, relics of an era of drink service and international crooners from my parent’s generation. Though I’ve sat in these seats patiently watching other people’s kids perform dance numbers while waiting to see my own tap and ballet dance.
‘Well everything looks so grand from the position…’
We have seats in the elevated section behind the dance floor and are relieved not to be standing. The boys walk on and wave. We clap and cheer. Richard Burgman says hello. They wave and nod. We haven’t yet seen the signature Peter Oxley big smile.
Love to Rule, Tunnel of Love, Trouble in My Brain, the hits roll out. We know the words, and can hear them being sung. We swing and tap in our seats until it becomes silly to stay there. We head for the dance floor. I think about putting on the new hat, that my son will later tell me is for younger people. But it was sold at a gig mostly comprising people of my age I will tell him. To which he will shrug, meaning he thinks it’s sad, even though he likes the music on my LPs too.
The going is easy on the dance floor. We can sidestep tall people and get closer to the stage without pushing. No toes are trodden on.
And there it is, that big Peter Oxley smile when he sings Stooge, a swirly sweet song. Everyone claps, hands above their heads, singing Show Me Some Discipline. ‘I’ll show you mine’. The boys roll out Alone with You and Happy Man. When they step off stage as they must, we clap and cheer for more. We want to stomp but can’t on the carpet. It must be soaking up the beer as it’s not sticky. A quarter of the audience vanishes out of the back of the room. It’s getting late. Not us. We don’t care, we don't want to miss a thing. We want more. There’s still some dancing in us. Specifically, I want Love in A Box and It Comes As No Surprise but they can’t reach every song.
Jeremy sings The Seeker.
The last dance. The house lights come on. We didn’t want it to be the end. I want to do it again. Immediately. Next morning when wet weather cancels my brother’s birthday party, I look at the tickets for the second show on Saturday but the allocation is exhausted. It’s over. And yet not over. The songs live on. But the Last Dance tour has stirred many feelings. Sadness yes at never again dancing to a live set by Sunnyboys but also questions about stopping. When do we stop anything? If they’ve stopped, should I be stopping? How do we choose? It feels better to choose though we can’t always.
But the music will go on. Every now and again, I will dig out the 80s LPs or catch a song on the radio, watch a video, or stream those songs and indulge myself with a little nostalgia-gasm and a private dance.
Nostalgia-gasm - LOVE IT!
I finally had the time to sit with this and give it the attention it deserved. So very worth the wait. Brilliant writing. Brilliant reading (and singing)!
Loved it all Marian, thank you 🧡