My name is Jim Booth and I have seen the Church around 5 or 6 times but the reason that I am writing to you is that I used to speak to Steve quite often from around 1984 to 1987. I first spoke to Steve on the telephone in 1983. I had written to him and I mentioned my band in the letter and apparently his Secretary at EMI Parlaphone thought that I was someone involved with a record company over in the States so she sent back a letter on pink Séance letterhead saying that Steve wanted me to call him at home that he was interested in talking to me, so included in this letter was steves home phone number!!

I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I opened the mailbox that day. Well I called him right away and I was very nervous, yet we talked for a long time and he didn't make me feel uncomfortable about the call. I was in a band at the time and Steve was my musical inspiration so you can imagine at 18 years old talking to Steve Kilbey was a huge deal and of course all of the guys in the band were really jealous of the whole thing so I called Steve back a few months later and let the other guys in the band talk to him, Steve was probably thinking we were out of our minds or something. Here we are living in a band house in Arizona, calling Steve in Australia, without a dime in our pockets.

Well Steve informed us that they would be coming over to play a few dates in support of Remote Luxury. The closest they would be to us would be San Diego California so I counted the days until they were playing. They day before the show we loaded up the 72 Pinto and drove the 8 hour drive from Phoenix to San Diego to see the Church for the first time. We got to the venue really early and waited around for the band to show up for sound checks. It was really cool when I first saw them, they pulled up in a van and when they got out they looked just like they did on the back cover of the first album ( which I had worn out at least two copies of before I ever talked to Steve) all decked out in paisley shirts and black pants and boots, pretty cool stuff !

Well we didn't want to run up to them like a bunch of crazed fans so we pretended to be roadies and started loading their equipment out of the truck and into the venue! I remember carrying in Marty's Rickenbacker, man that was such a trip. Finally I got the nerve up and I approached Steve and told him who I was and he was very nice as was the rest of the band. I spent most of the day with them and we all sat around a round table and listened to my bands tape on Marty's radio that he was carrying around with him. It was pretty magical and I can tell you that Richard and Peter were two of the most humble and kind people that I had ever met, as was Steve and Marty, but Richard and Peter had a genuine quality that I remember.

Well the concert was great that night and I saw and talked to Steve a few more times after that but I will have to tell you about that later it's getting late here and I must be going.

Jim

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