Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size It was a summer evening in early 1992 when a guy picked a fight with me at the Hopetoun Hotel in Surry Hills for reasons now lost to the mists of time.
We’d just seen Died Pretty play, and we were winding down with a couple of games at the pool table. I was – and still am – a pretty scrawny specimen. This bloke could have snapped me like a twig, which he threatened to do as he started poking me in the chest with a blunt index finger.
At that moment, a diminutive figure intervened. Died Pretty frontman Ron Peno was roughly the same height and weight as Kylie Minogue, but after staring at my tormentor silently for a few moments with those intense, kohl-rimmed eyes and then quietly saying, “Leave Barry alone”, the guy backed down. Back in the glory days you could catch a midweek show from Paul Kelly at the Hopetoun.
Credit: Bryan Cook “I’ll be waiting for you outside when you leave,” my would-be assailant said to me before disappearing with his mates. An hour later, I took up the kind offer of Ron’s bandmate Brett Myers – who had the height and weight of an NBA basketballer – to escort me to my car a couple of blocks up Bourke Street. And so ended another night at the Hoey, as everyone called it.
To quote This Is Spinal Tap, “Don’t look for it.