These Infinite Spaces

We played our first gig at the SUS Club, supporting a band I don't remember. It was a good venue, with a high stage, a large entertainment room, a good PA and (incredible!) dressing rooms for the bands.

The SUS Club was local for our friends - I just checked a map and it was almost exactly midway between Engadine and Carss Park, where Jarrod lived. And so we brought along a good crowd and played a decent gig (support bands rarely get a good mix). The club was impressed with the crowd, and quickly had us back again as the headline act.

This began a golden run for us, it was well and truly my "Summer of 69" moment. Over the next 8 or 9 months we headlined the SUS Club about 10 times. We played there at least once a month, and sometimes twice. And the crowds came. We had a core group of 30-40 friends who were always there, but soon we were getting crowds of 150 plus. They would pack the dance floor and just go nuts having a good time. I went to quite a few gigs for other bands at the SUS Club, and no-one was getting a crowd like us. We well and truly "owned"that venue in 1990.

It was an electric experience for me, every time. The place looked packed from on stage, and our stage mix was usually pretty good, so we felt like things were going well. People would hoot and cheer when their favourite song came on, and there always seemed to be a crowd on the dance floor. To energize a crowd like, to look out and have them look up at you in a kind of ecstatic daze - the feeling was indescribable. We felt like rock-stars.

There were 5 or 6 other garage bands around our age who were also getting gigs at the SUS Club, but none of them could draw a crowd. What was so special about The Catch? Why was this "our time"? A hard question to answer without sound egotistical, but I'll give it a go next post.