My Trooper experience

As I said last night, the first concert I ever went to was Trooper in September 1977 ... I was 15.

The afternoon of the concert, my friend/neighbour (J) and I started walking to Sydney to go to the library. We lived just outside in Sydney River and it was about an hour walk (we didn't have bus fare and I wasn't into hitchhiking).

Along the way, we stopped at the Holiday Inn to use the washroom. For some reason, one of the employees told us that Trooper was staying in the motel and even gave us their room number.

We knocked on their door ... what the hell were we thinking?!

One of them said that he was going to open the door but to wait a minute or so before we went in.

The door opened a bit and the room was dark.

Here they are around that time.


J wanted to go in.

Going into their room would not have been a good idea!

So I closed the door.

J wasn't pleased!

Then one of them told us to go away and that they would be signing autographs later that afternoon at Woolco in Sydney River.

So we booted on back to Sydney River (never did get to the library) and waited for them at Woolco. They signed some notepaper and jokingly wrote something like "To the doorknockers ... Leave us alone!".

Here they are now.


There are only two original members left, Ra McGuire and Brian Smith (centre and right), and they'll soon be 60.

Yes, they've aged in the 30 years since I first saw them.

But then, so have I! Here's me at 15.