Peter Allen - the Night I Met Peter Allen - the Boy from Oz

In 1977, Peter Allen's career was at an all time high following the chart-topping success of his song I Go to Rio. This prompted his first tour down-under to the country of his birth as a headline act.

I was living in Melbourne, Victoria at the time and a friend who was born in Tenterfield, NSW (Peter's birthplace) asked me to go to his I Go to Rio concert. We bought tickets and Patricia and I were keyed up and excited. But we were not to know that on the night of the concert we would be included in a small dinner party hosted by Peter after the show.

A few days before the concert, Patricia decided to try to contact Peter to check how she could buy one of his records that had not been released in Australia. Newspaper publicity had him staying at the Melbourne Hilton, so she rang hoping to speak with him. The receptionist advised he was not in but was taking calls. Patricia didn't leave a message but kept phoning each day hoping to catch Peter at the hotel. The Hilton receptionist eventually told Patricia to phone the Dallas Brooks Hall. Peter was rehearsing but as luck would have it, promoter Kevin Jacobsen came to the phone.

Here's where the Tenterfield connection comes in. Patricia's mother Patti had worked for Festival Records in Sydney and was well known to Kevin Jacobsen. She had grown up in Tenterfield and as a youngster, Peter Allen had practiced dancing in Patti's mother's living room.

Kevin Jacobsen asked Patricia how her mother was because he hadn't seen her in ages. That's when Patricia had to tell him Patti had died eighteen months prior. He was shocked to hear this and wanted to know what he could do for her. She bit the bullet and told him she would like to meet Peter Allen. Kevin offered free tickets to the concert (which we didn't need because we already had ours) and told Patricia to come backstage after the concert.

This is the first time We had been backstage at a concert of this type. We were amongst all types of music industry people including Ian "Molly" Meldrum who was waiting to interview Peter. When Peter Allen came down the stairs towards us, he walked right past Meldrum and came straight over to us. We introduced ourselves and Peter invited us to dinner. He told us to go on down to the restaurant because he had to deal with the press.

The dinner was at the Flower Drum Chinese Restaurant in a private room. Patricia was thrilled that Peter's mother, Mrs Woolnough, was there and they were able to chat about life back in Tenterfield and people they knew in common. When Peter arrived, he spent time talking with us about everyday things like where we worked and what our interests were. Other guests included people from Festival Records and Peter's Manager and band members.

The food was absolutely the best I had tasted and it just kept coming - from midnight into the early hours of the morning. It was a friendly gathering - just 15 people - and a night I'll always remember fondly.

I will never forget meeting Peter Allen - a true gentleman and great entertainer.

Many years later (in 1999) I saw The Boy from Oz at the Lyric Theatre in Brisbane with Todd McKenney in the role of Peter. This brought back happy memories of the night I met Peter Allen - the boy from Oz.

Read about Liza Minnelli's Australian Tour

Sources:

Personal experience

http://www.musicaustralia.org

http://collections.theartscentre.com.au/peter-allen/biography.aspx

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