Little Charlie and the Nightcats

My Dad likes Blues music.  BB King, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, Clapton, William Clarke, Junior Wells.  He only reads crime novels and he only listens to the Blues.  He has straightforward tastes like that. 

Another teen holiday with my Dad memory.  He was working in Cairns and I (about 16 at this point)  was flown up to spend a couple of weeks with him.  I spent my days hanging out with the son of one of his mates.  We sat on the beach, bummed around shopping centres, talked rugby.  In the evenings Dad and I would go to Johno’s Blues Bar.  Johno would get up on stage in his surfing singlet, jeans, and thongs (flip flops) and growl out delta blues.  Balmy North Queensland nights and the blues.  

In the car, Dad would play his blues tapes.  He started with BB King and then he acquired all kinds of things; William Clarke’s Blowin’ Like Hell was a regular feature.  But it was Little Charlie and the Nightcats that he loved the most.  They sounded pretty much like everything else to me, but he liked them.

Around 1994 Dad said he’d heard Little Charlie was touring Australia and could I find out where they were playing? I got us two tickets for us to see them at Van Gogh’s Ear Lobe in South Brisbane.  I’d been there a few times before.  I’d seen Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter, and Dave Steel there on the Turn Off the Telly Tour and later I saw Rob Clarkson and a few other local Brisbane bands there too. 

Typically, you’d find a cool, hipster crowd in there. It had a very laid-back vibe.  Gigs can be full of all kinds of judgemental characters, wearing the right kind of band t-shirt, but I’d always found Van Gogh’s Ear Lobe to be an easy place.  Even so, Dad wasn’t comfortable.  It took him five minutes to tell me he was the oldest person on site.  That might have been true, but no one noticed or even cared.  So, reassured, he went to the bar and bought two stubbies of VB.  We knocked them back. I went and got two more.

On came the band.  They were as expected.  Real pros, who knew what they were doing.  What they were doing was not much more interesting than hearing them on tape, but you had to admire their energy and commitment to getting the crowd up for a night of West Coast Blues.

Dad liked it.  After I finished school, we’d had some difficult moments, him and I.  I’d left home at 21 after he told me it was time to move out and grow up.   My older brother stayed there for a few years after I left.  I’d been processing that for some time (still am, I think), but he was my Dad and I didn’t have a lot to complain about.  I felt this was a good way for us to rebuild bridges.

The band played on and the venue was full. Dad was still uncomfortable and seemed wary of a few characters about the place.  No one looked like a threat to me, indeed I was enjoying the vibe.  So, when it was his turn to buy another round (and we’d had a few at this point), I said, don’t worry, I’ll go and get them.  My thinking was that he could enjoy the band he’d come to see and I’d negotiate the crowd.  You stay here, I’ll get ‘em.

Looking back, I was breaking a taboo. He was offended that for some reason I thought he wasn’t able to get his round in when it was his turn.  Australian men of a certain generation take this seriously.  I try not to, but that’s me.  

Sitting at our table while the gig went on, we went back and forth, arguing about who was going to buy who a beer.  It was getting silly.  I stood up and then he did too, trying to head me off.  So I thought, can’t do this all night, I’ll just go get them.  I started to go to the bar.  Here’s the surprising bit. Dad sidestepped me, quick and smooth as you like, got right in front of me, and squared up, fists up, ready to go.

Eh? Does he want to fight me? I backed down and let him go make the purchase.  He went to the bar. Came back with two more stubbies of VB and we drank them. We felt awkward.  We watched the rest of the gig.  We cabbed to my place. I got out and he went back out to the suburbs. 

He called me the next day at work and thanked me for taking him.  He’d had a great time and mentioned our night out regularly for years after, never failing to mention how old he was compared to everyone else at the gig.  I never brought up the moment when he squared up to me.  What would we say about it?  It was entirely uncharacteristic of him to do a thing like that. I can’t think of a moment when we were hit as kids.

He's getting on a bit these days.  He’s not well at all and his memory is sketchy.  I went out to Brisbane in early 2022 and Mum put the Little Charlie CD on and suddenly, pop, he remembered our night out.  He couldn’t remember the name of the venue or really, what had happened that night.  But we were able to share a memory of a good gig and a time we felt like were both interested in the same thing.  It’s a memory worth treasuring.