Really bizarre story to tell...
I'm back in Seattle for a few days to see my little sister graduate from high school, and I've just been filling my family in on my recent trip to London. I was talking with my grandfather about it, and, you know, I figured he'd be the last person on earth to know who Steve Kilbey is, since he lives in Havelock NC and listens to George Jones. But he asked me who the fellow was that I opened for and I said "Steve Kilbey" and he said, "Oh yeah, that's the guy who banged his foot up right after Bob told him not to touch the coral!"

Huh?

Turns out grandpa's best friend, Bob Amaco (who incidentally is a loyal Black Rider customer) lived in Australia for a spell a few or ten years back. And one day he took some fellows out on a boat to go swimming out by some coral. Before everyone went into the water he said "Now, whatever you do, DON'T TOUCH THE CORAL! It will cut you up like a razor blade." Well, not more than a few minutes after he said this, a guy started floundering about, yelling, and bleeding everywhere. Sure enough he had cut his foot open pretty bad on the coral. So Bob, being a veteran lifeguard who saved 200 people in his youth, dove in, swam out, grabbed the man and swam him back to the safety of the boat, where they proceeded to bandage him up. When he was talking to the man later, he learned that his name was Steve Kilbey and he was in a rock group called "The Church." Bob related this story to Grandpa when it happened, and Grandpa had forgotten all about it until the moment I told him I had performed with a guy named Steve Kilbey. Quite the prodigious memory, eh? and small f*(king world, eh?!!

I'd be curious to know if Mr. Kilbey remembers this and if it really did happen like that. Too bad Bob Amaco wasn't standing on the side of the road in Sweden on that fateful day!

Robert

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