SUMMER LOVE by SHERBET. Story by Tracy Peacock.

Perth Entertainment Centre, Western Australia.  10 December, 1976.

It’s dark and I’m screaming. Thousands around me are doing the same. My new Levis are chopping me in half. Mum warned they were too tight. What would she know? They’re cool.

 My blonde hair’s flying around my face. My fringe is stupid. It’s not flicking like Farrah Fawcett’s. I should have left the scissors alone.

 I can smell the perfume ‘Charlie’ coming from the girl in front. I hope I get it for Christmas. And I hope the band comes on stage soon or I will self-combust.

 ***

My memories of that Sherbet concert were prompted by a fleeting Facetime video from my son at Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour concert in New Jersey. He sounded breathless, describing the scene at MetLife Stadium — Beyoncé hovering above the crowd on a glittering silver horse.

He’d done everything to cross the Hudson River to get there. His call catapulted me back to Friday 10th December, 1976. It was my 14-year-old peak fan era and I was at my first Sherbet concert at the Perth Entertainment Centre, the same venue where I’d been dazzled by Disney on Ice only a couple of years before.

***

I’m still counting the minutes for Sherbet to come on stage.  I’m praying they’ll sing Summer Love. If they don’t, I’ll die.

 The music booms and at last they’re on. The crowd clamours and my vision blurs. Hope my Starlet blue eyeshadow doesn’t smudge. I’m squealing, bouncing higher than Skippy and whirling my arms like a helicopter blade.

 The band members are shimmering like an aurora on the stage. Daryl’s spunky in white satin. Garth’s hot on the keyboards. I love them both.

 In three weeks’ time, I’ll be getting their new Howzat album for Christmas. It’s going to be a cassette so I can belt out ‘You messed about I caught you out, Howzat!’  in my bedroom.  

***

After I farewelled my son on Facetime, I went to my storage cupboard. Above the folded sheets and pillow cases, my photo albums were standing tall like soldiers guarding my past.

I reached for my 1970s album, with its orange fabric cover and yellowing adhesive pages and sank into the sofa, ready to be immersed in my adolescence.

I plunged in. There was a program from my first concert, Helen Reddy, at the Perth Concert Hall in 1973, which I’d gone to with Dad.

But it was the pages with the 1976 Sherbet concert souvenirs that made me shake. There was the prized ticket I’d had in my hot little hand that night — The Sherbet Christmas Show, Lounge Right, Door GR, Block L1, Row K, Seat 21.

On the opposite page, four faded photos from the concert. If I hadn’t been five foot five, maybe the photos would have been better. Daryl Braithwaite, Garth Porter, Tony Mitchell, Alan Sandow and Harvey James were partly obscured by the heads of the wild girls jumping in front of me.

***

I’m screaming the words to my favourite Sherbet song: ‘Summer love is like no other love. You know what I mean.’  

 Garth grabs a roll of toilet paper that someone’s thrown onto the stage and hurls it into the crowd. It’s fluttering my way.

I’m on my knees on the floor, squeezing between girls and their jabbing elbows. My fingers are reaching across the ground.  

 I hoist myself up. I’ve got two pieces. Two pieces of something touched by Garth. I poke them into my pocket for safe-keeping. I hope the night never ends.

***

I found them again on the final page of the album — the two treasured pieces of toilet paper, the colour of pink Everlastings.

I thought about the other objects I’d collected back then — magazines, vinyl records and cassettes. At concerts, I’d snap shots on my crappy plastic camera, just like the disappointing four I had in the photo album.

My bedroom had been plastered with photos and posters and I had spent hours sprawled on my pink chenille bedspread cutting out images and gluing them on my school diary. If I was bored on Sundays, waiting to curl up on a bean bag to watch Countdown, I’d decorate my school bag with the words ‘Sherbet’, ‘Daryl’ and ‘Garth’ in groovy 70s balloon-like letters.

***

Sherbet’s gone off the stage and the lights are back on. I make a beeline for the exit where Dad is waiting. In the car, I try telling him about the concert but my voice sounds like Rod Stewart. ‘Summer Love’ is on repeat in my head. I slide the toilet paper out of my pocket, cradle it in my palm and imagine how it will look in my album.

Stereo Story #786

See also Stephen Andrew’s story about Summer Love.