How did you find a good reliable roadie? Had any experiences with loyal fans? How do people support you emotionally / physically?

I want to dedicate this post to "Dean", who was a loyal friend, supporter and roadie while I was playing around Sydney with "The Surprise" back in the late 80's / early 90's.

Dean was a HUGE young guy, but with an absolute heart of gold. A proverbial gentle giant. He would willingly do almost anything for us, falling over himself to help out in any way he could.

The beauty of Dean was that, while we absolutely loved him, he wasn't exactly... erm, how shall I put it? He always seemed to be "a sandwich short of a picnic" socially?

I still have a mental image of someone saying, as a passing joke, "Who can carry both these W-bins out into the truck?" after a large gig. (A 'W-bin' was an old-school massive PA cabinet). Dean, being the eager helper, was more than willing to carry one out ON - HIS - OWN, despite the fact that they weighed about 34,728 kgs each! We stopped him, naturally. hahahahaa. No, we actually really liked the guy... we didn't wanna see him get squished underneath one of those things down a flight of stairs somewhere!

Oh, I could tell lots of fun, classic "Dean" stories. Maybe another time...

Ask me one day about the Hero Roll. Or the balloons...

If I was still in touch with Dean (the guitarist has been in contact with him over the years still), I'd wanna give him a big encouraging hug. He helped make the most mundane gigs memorable.

Here's an old "Surprise" webpage I never got around to finishing! au.geocities.com/maljam2002/surprise.html