“CINCINNATI WAS WHERE we were going to kick off our big American tour,” Niki said. “The record company in Australia had put everything into making us massive over here. They got a fancy US promoter, Heavy Blert, to organize everything and gave him a ton of money up front to make sure nothing was left to chance. The tour was called G’day, America and it was all part of pushing The Spiderzz right up into the big leagues. We were going to be stars, Heavy told us. We were going to be the next Bon Jovi.”

We all looked at him blankly.

“Bon Jovi,” Niki repeated. “You must have heard of Bon Jovi? ‘Living on a Prayer’?

 

‘You Give Love a Bad Name’? You seriously haven’t heard of Bon Jovi?”

“Who’s he?” I asked.

“They were massive in the ’80s and ’90s,” Niki said.

“None of us were born then,” I pointed out.

“Oh boy,” Niki sighed. “I was forgetting how old I am. Anyway, Bon Jovi were huge and we were next. We were going to play the Cincinnati Colts Arena. ‘Kangaroo Krush’ was high in the charts and Heavy Blert said he’d never seen tickets sell so fast. We were all set. We flew to America—four Aussie boys ready to conquer the world.”

Niki stood up and began to pace. He seemed agitated. Without warning, he kicked the crate he’d been sitting on. Yup, he was definitely agitated.

“So I’m guessing the show didn’t go well?” Kasey said.

“Go well?” Niki scoffed. “No, it didn’t go well, Kasey. It didn’t go well at all because there was no show. Turned out there was no such thing as the Cincinnati Colts Arena. There was no G’day, America tour, no other stadiums, no other shows—nothing. The whole American tour was one gigantic con. Heavy Blert was a total crook. He’d taken everything—the money from the record company, the ticket sales, the merchandise money—and skipped down to Venezuela. He’d done that trick to five other new bands at the time. He made squillions out of us suckers. Just like that, The Spiderzz were finished.

The rest of the boys wanted to go back to Australia and start again, but it had been a real kick in the guts for me. I took off on a motorbike and drove across the US. I drifted around a bit, did some rodeo, spent a few months on an oil rig out in the Gulf of Mexico and even drove an ice truck in Alaska for a while. Then I became a supply teacher specializing in European composers of the eighteenth century.”

“I did not expect that last bit,” Kasey said.