Pat Drummond... The Retro Rest Hotel Show

Mention Pat Drummond's name to people since the 1990's and it conjures up images of the National Folk and Country Music festival markets. From Port Fairy to Tamworth, Drummond is a regular performer more associated with the acoustic concert stage than with Sydney's smoky pub scene. Described by Eric Bogle as "a writer whose deft lyrical touch and clear-eyed yet compassionate view of the human condition sets his songs apart from, and above, most others you will hear"; Drummond's eighteen albums have certainly earned him a respected place in the front ranks of Australia's singer songwriters.

But between 1977-1988 Pat Drummond was far better known as Sydney's most influential solo pub performer. Credited by Sonics Magazine and On The Street with pioneering many of this city's solo pub venues, as well as being a leading light in the independent recording boom of the time, he was in many ways the 'prototype' of the modern 'one man band'.

In the early seventies, before the current stack of commercially available sequences and drum units hit the Australian market, he tore the guts out of a Hammond organ boom box and hot wired it to a stack of 5 Phase linear 700B's and 20 JBL K130 speaker cabinets. With a four man crew and strong university following, he set about dominating the emerging Sydney wine bar and pub scene with a vengeance. Anthony O'Grady of The Sun Herald described him at the time as "A Champion Of Independent Music, with a show full of rowdy high jinks and audience participation..."

In his way, he may have been the most unusual live performer of his genre because his shows were not so much performed in front of an audience, as by the audience themselves. Tracks such as 'Who Owns the Ball', 'Northwood Hill', and 'Hector the Rat' featured crowd parts so highly arranged and tightly performed that it became nearly impossible to say whose concerts these actually were. But if the crowd was the band at his performances, Drummond was definitely the orchestrater. His crowd control, which gave him such a formidable reputation as a live performer, and the quirky and innovative quality of his original material made him quite unlike anything else this city had seen before.

But, even then, it was when the spotlight swung back to the stage in songs such as The Battler, Maree or Desperation in The Promised Land that it becomes easier to understand why he has achieved such an impact as a songwriter since.

Doubtlessly, his most famous and long running residency was at The Rest Hotel in Milson's Point where he performed for eleven and a half years before the venue was finally demolished. The recording of a a Live double album; "The Age Of Rage" saw the streets blocked by enormous crowds and Sydney radio stations appealing for people to stay clear of the area.

On Sat , 23rd Feb 2013, The Kirribilli Hotel, Milsons Point will be bringing Pat back to the his old stamping ground for The Retro Rest Ho-Tel Show. Celebrating his 6000th professional gig, Drummond will performing the exact playlist from the night that the Rest Hotel closed. So if you were one of those who survived the madness and mayhem of his shows in your misspent youth, this is definitely a 'not to be missed' event.

For further - Information phone

The Kirribilli Hotel
37 Broughton St
Milsons Point, NSW, 2061
02 9955 1415

Shoestring Productions
02 4788 1157