The Twilights Early Promo Photo
Left To Right: Frank Barnard, Glenn Shorrock, John Bywaters, Paddy McCartney, Peter Brideoake And Terry Britten
Glenn Shorrock: “The Vectormen soon moved away and then The Hurricanes moved in. They had John Perry as lead singer and Kevin Peek (Later of Sky) on lead guitar, John Bywaters on bass, Peter Brideoake on rhythm guitar and Frank Bernard on Drums. We worked with them at the Salisbury Youth Centre for quite a while and built up a small following. Kevin Peek left to join the Vectormen and form Johnny Broome & The Handels. So Kevin recommended a little weed of a guy from Tea Tree Gully called Terry Britten. He joined and we became firm friends. The Twilights then were six. Mike Sykes sadly had to be sacked and that was one of the bitter periods of my life. He was probably my best friend at the time but that was my first taste of being professionally ruthless… fortunately there are no hard feelings now. So that’s how the six piece Twilights came into being. We would play half an hour at one end of the Salisbury Youth Centre and then Johnny Broome & The Handels would play the other end, facing us, for the other half hour. So it was like a battle of the bands and we enjoyed a keen rivalry…”
Twilights Win Local ‘Beatle Hop’
Glenn Shorrock: “When I found out that The Beatles were from Liverpool, England, it really intrigued me that that sound could come out of there, it just didn’t ring true to me. I met a few Liverpool migrants in Elizabeth who told me about them so I just totally loved them. Even before they arrived we were all wearing sort of facsimiles of Beatle clothing. You couldn’t buy it, so you had to either make it or approximate it. Instead of Beatle boots, the only boots we could find like that would be the R.M. Williams’ boots in Prospect. And the hair was worn, not long but longish. People didn’t accept long hair. We just used to comb it forward on the weekends. But gradually the whole culture took over. It was just a great identity thing. We could all identify with it and, of course, Adelaide had a high percentage of English migrants and they were constantly coming in as well. So you were updated all of the time as to what was happening in England. Adelaide was definitely hipper than any other place in Australia. It stayed that way for a long time.”
Twilights On Local TV
The “Twilights” – Appearing At The Elizabeth Skating Rink
Glenn Shorrock: “By this stage we had become very popular in our local area, so Mike Sykes decided that we should open our own dance. We called it the Matelot Club because it was the Navy Association CLub in Elizabeth South. We used to play for a hour on Friday nights with the Vectormen. Then we were offered the job at the Salisbury Youth Centre which was a step us for us. That was a larger venue. We could get about 2000 kids in there on a saturday night, and so the Vectormen and The Twilights moved in.”
Checkmates Become Twilights
Glenn Shorrock: “We were actually The Checkmates to begin with and there were four of us, but we trimmed it down and became a trio. We were just looking at The sunset one night and I said: “Why don’t we call ourselves The Twilights?” I wish I hadn’t done that, I hated the name from then on. It worked alright if you said The Twilights fast but for some reason it sort of embarrassed me when comperes used to say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, would you put your hands together and give a big welcome for The Twilights.” It just didn’t have the same sort of ring, You know?”
Twilights With Car
Twilights Promo Photos
Twilights First Record
Twilights With The Vectormen
Glenn Shorrock: “There were a few teenage dances. People just bought their records along and every now and then you’d have a bit of an amateur band jumping up. People like Alan Tarney and Frank Tarney and those sort of people. The Vectormen started just down the street from me. Who else was around at that time? Bobby Bright and The Beaumen; Doug Ashdown, who lived in Elizabeth as well was in that. In fact the first electric guitar I ever saw was Doug Ashdown’s. If you were really lucky, you’d get an Adelaide band like The Penny Rockets, they were a damn good band, the best around. They were around 19 or 20, while we were all around 16. We used to copyDion’s Runaround Sue and The Hop by Danny and The Juniors. The folk thing was very big at the time so we sang Michael Row The Boat Ashore. Greenback Dollar, anything that had a bit of harmony to it. Then the Beach Boys came along and the Everly Brothers of course and we would do a few of those.”