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We were at a loose end in New York City, my two mates and I. It was late December 1986, and we'd been in The Big Apple just a few days. We'd seen the hit novelty movie Crocodile Dundee at a cinema just off Times Square the previous night. Thought it might be an idea to check out a band. So I went downstairs from our hotel room to a chilled-to-the-bone December afternoon on 47th St in Midtown Manhattan. I walked past steaming manholes and walk-up brownstones until I found a newstand and grabbed a copy of the Village Voice.

We caught a cab downtown and ate at a cheap Mexican restaurant in the East Village. But still got to the Lone Star Cafe just in time to snag one of the last available tables. The joint was starting to fill up as the support band, a blues outfit from Chicago, went through its final set. Our waitress reluctantly introduced herself. She didn't seem to like the look of us and it soon got to the mutual stage. My experience of the Big Apple is that it is NOT a friendly town. But we were prepared to peacefully co-exist with her. The Japanese couple sitting opposite were nice though, and we exchanged pleasantries with them until Mick hit the stage. Just as the guy was assuring me that "Everrywun rrliike Rorrrling Stonez."

Mick kept things pretty bluesy throughout his two excellent sets. And there were no complaints. The audience were way too cool to call out the names of Stones numbers. He played a couple of songs from his excellent eponymous 1979 debut solo album and I was rapt that the knowledgeable crowd reacted to these little-known gems. He even dipped into the Clapton catalogue with Key To The Highway. His singing was fine. Nothing to write home about but well-suited to the material.

And Mick Taylor played great guitar. His sound and his style were just beautiful. He's a really sweet blues guitarist and I suppose I'd rather listen to him cut loose than anyone. I heard recently that Slash rates him as a major influence (I'll update as soon as I track down a link for it) One thing that's always struck me about his slide guitar playing was that he seemed to do a fair bit of it in standard tuning, unlike Keith Richard who wouldn't use a standard tuning if his life depended on it. So it was tempting for rank amateurs like me to think they could go home and just churn it out like Mick. Fat chance.

When it was over, our waitress gave us the bill as perfunctorily as her service throughout the evening and we argued amongst ourselves about the tip. Suitably warmed by the drinks and the fact that I'd just spent an evening with one of my idols, I argued for ten percent, what I thought would be the base rate for tipping based on what I'd gleaned form the last few days in New York. They were either a cheapskate regular crowd at the Lone Star or she hadn't been making much in tips because she whooped and high-fived. She might have been taking the piss, but it was the first time she'd looked happy all night. Not like me.

During a break earlier in the evening, the guy next to me at the urinal said something that still haunts me. Nothing to do with size, you sillies. No, he mentioned that if I'd been there the night before, I would have seen Keith Richard on stage with Mick and his band. According to this bloke, Keith had strolled around from his nearby Greenwich Village home and got up and had a blast with his ol' Stones offsider. I thought the guy might have been mouthing off and didn't give his info much credence but bugger me if I haven't read of exactly what he described referred to in separate interviews with both Mick Taylor AND Keith Richard a couple of times since. Missed it by THAT much!

Update!

Mick Taylor performing with the band at around the same time as this gig occurred.

Curly wanted to go in too but we were a bit apprehensive as his swimming and breathing is not quite strong enough just yet. Being nine years old, he just missed the ten-years-or-older cut off. Moe knows his limitations and watched from below.

One thing we did differently was visit O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat in the Lamington National Park. It was a sinuous two hour drive up into the mountains followed by a walk along an elevated boardwalk above the rainforest. Just beautiful.

I hadn’t made the connection, but when we got there, there was a lot of information about Bernard O’Reilly’s rescue of the Stinson survivors in 1937. This is the famous story where a twin-engined Stinson passenger aircraft went missing on a flight between Brisbane and Sydney. The search, centreing around northern NewSouth Wales, had been abandoned when O’Reilly went out into the dense bush, convinced the plane had come down somewhere in the McPherson Ranges. About to turn around and head home, he noticed a brown tree against the normally green forest backdrop and knew he’d found the crash site. The two survivors were badly injured and O’Reilly helped organize local farmers in the difficult task of getting them out safely.

The view from the O’Reilly’s Guesthouse balcony

As we left Queensland the weather was closing in. We’d had ten days of sunshine sandwiched between rainy periods.

My only regret is getting taxis between home in Flemington and Tullamarine Airport at a cost of c. $105 when we could have driven there and parked in the long-term carpark for $67.

Another blogger posted about a website where you could click on various countries on a world map to indicate places you've been. I thought this was a terrific idea. So I followed the link, coloured in the countries I've been to and saved the image. Stuffed if I can remember the details now.

So, apologies to the blogger who put me onto this for not attributing, and sorry again for not being able to provide a link here.

I blame prolonged marijuana use. But my mates say I shouldn't use a perfectly delightful substance as a scapegoat for my own shortcomings. So okay cannabis sativa, I hereby apologise to you as well. We've been friends for too long to let a little thing like this come between us.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, the map.

It's fine, but it does gild the lily just a tad:

1) Indonesia is only coloured in because I had a two-week holiday in Bali in 1984;

2) New Zealand made the cut only by virtue of a three-hour stopover at Auckland Airport on the way to the US in 1986;

3) Mexico just qualified thanks to a day trip to Tijuana from Los Angeles in 1987;

4) But I couldn't fucking find Fiji, where a stopover on the way back from the US in 1987 provided me with a three-hour Nadi Airport sojourn;

If you know the website where these maps are available let me know in the comments and I'll update.