Established Melbourne, 1991 Fridays · The Emerald Room, Coburg
Continental Entertainment Since 1991 Frankie Velvet and the Tendertones

Tenderness, Nightly

1,411 photographs

Photographs

Almost none of these were taken by anybody who was paid. They are what audiences happened to have on them, handed over across thirty-five years.

Dating

Where there is nothing written on the back, these are dated by the guitar, the shirts and the room, in that order. Eleven of them are dated by the shirts alone. Two are certainly in the wrong decade and have been left where they are.

The reception years · 1991–1999

Wood panelling, one red globe, a house archtop and a saxophone that arrived in a van. Everything the band would still be doing in 2026 is already in these photographs.

A quartet performing in a wood-panelled bar room: percussionist, singer at the microphone and a seated guitarist.
The quartet, full frame. The only photograph in which the room’s clock is legible; it reads twenty past eleven.
Frankie Velvet full length in a dark suit, singing into a hand-held microphone.
Velvet, full length. The jacket was lost at sea in 2007 and has never been replaced with one he likes as much.
A percussionist behind bongos, lit red from below.
The percussion chair under the red globe. The bongos were house property and never left the building.
A guitarist in a dark suit playing a gold-top archtop guitar.
The house archtop, bought second-hand in Preston in 1993. Five Tendertones have held it. None has owned it.
Five musicians on a small stage: percussion, tenor saxophone, singer, guitar and a second percussionist.
The full band with Pesic on tenor, second from left. One of four photographs showing every member at once.
A dim panelled room, band on a low stage, patrons watching from the foreground.
The room, mid-set. Attendance recorded in the diary as “good, considering.”
Two women singing into microphones, one in a white blouse and one in black.
Pike and Delahunty, in the order they have stood in since October 1995.
A singer with her back to the camera and a guitarist singing into a microphone opposite her.
A duet from behind. Nobody is sure who is singing. It is filed under both names.
Frankie Velvet standing at a microphone stand, arms at his sides.
Feet together, hands down. The band calls this one “the apology.”
A vocalist singing with head tilted back beside a guitarist.
A Velvette taking the one lead of the evening.
The band across a small stage with an organ at the left.
The opening number, from the back. Nobody is looking at the stage yet.
Frankie Velvet in profile at the microphone with the guitarist behind him.
Velvet in profile. The hand position is identical in every photograph here.
At sea · 2005–2011

Six seasons aboard the M.S. Coral Duchess. Two sets a night, six nights a week, and a painted skyline that was meant to be Manhattan and was widely believed on board to be Adelaide.

A band on a low stage in front of a painted city skyline, with red-lit tables in the foreground.
The Neptune Lounge, third season. The skyline was repainted twice and never improved.
A dark club room, band at the back, tables of seated drinkers in the foreground.
Second set, half past ten. Two tables have been at the same argument since the first.
A crowded bar seen over the shoulders of patrons, bottles lit gold behind it.
The bar during “The Girl from Ipanema.” There are nine photographs of this bar and none of the stage on the same evening.
Estoril and after · 2008–2016

The years in which rooms began to fill before the band arrived rather than after. The lighting changes in this section because for the first time somebody else was operating it.

A packed club seen from a balcony, the band on a small stage below surrounded by a standing crowd.
Velvetmania, the Palais Rialto, Fitzroy, second night, 2013. Taken from the lighting gantry by somebody who was not supposed to be there.
View from behind the singer looking out over a large standing audience.
From behind Velvet, looking out. The only one taken from the stage. Nobody knows who took it.
A wide stage with double bass, vocalists and full band before a large seated crowd.
The full nine, including the upright bass Marco Reis brings from Portugal in a case he built himself.
Three vocalists and a singer at the front of a stage before a painted mural, guitarist at right, audience close in front.
The front line, four across. The mural behind them was painted in 1978 and is heritage-listed, which is why the band has never been allowed to hang a banner.
A band lit by green and red stage lights: singer, saxophone and guitarist.
The first engagement at which the band had a lighting operator. Frankie asked him, twice, to turn it down.
A saxophonist, a female vocalist and a guitarist tightly framed on a small stage.
Three-quarters of the front line, close. Filed under “the fence.”
Now · 2017–2026

The Emerald Room, Coburg, and the return to the Astoria. Nine people, a Hammond organ, an empty chair filled at last, and the same fourteen songs.

A singer and guitarist on a blue-lit stage before a painted backdrop.
The Emerald Room, Friday. The blue wash is the room’s own and cannot be switched off.
A guitarist in a dark jacket and white shirt, eyes closed, playing a gold-top archtop.
The custodian of the archtop, eyes closed, third chorus. There are eleven photographs of this expression across four different guitarists.
A grey-haired saxophonist in black playing tenor saxophone.
Pesic. Filed here rather than with the nineties, at the band’s request.
An audience seen from behind, heads close to camera, the band small and bright beyond them.
The room, from the fourth row. Probably the most accurate photograph here.
Four performers in a line: saxophone, vocalist, singer and guitarist.
Croll in the tenor chair, second from left, in the position Pesic stood in for twenty-five years.
A double bass player at the left of a small stage beside a vocalist and guitarist.
Reis on the upright. He plays electric only when the room is too small for the case.
Undated

Six hundred and four of these have no date, no venue and no photographer. These are the ones the band would most like help with.

A wide view of a dim panelled bar room with a band performing and patrons watching.
Room unidentified. Dated by the shirts to 1996–1998. Somebody has suggested Wangaratta. Nobody is convinced.
A band across a small stage with two vocalists at the microphones and a guitarist at the right.
Two Velvettes and a guitarist whose face is turned away in every frame on the roll. Presumed Col Brindle.
A vocalist in a patterned dress at a microphone, with a bass player and guitarist behind.
The dress does not appear in any other plate. Nobody has ever established who this is.
A vocalist singing at the front of a small stage with a percussionist and guitarist behind her.
A Velvette taking a lead, room unknown. Filed with the nineties on the strength of the microphone stand.
A guitarist at stage right in a dark suit, lit from above.
Stage right, undated. One of the two that are certainly in the wrong decade. Left where it is.
Two women singing at microphones with a percussionist behind them.
Reverse marked only “the good night” in pencil, in a hand nobody has recognised.
A detail of a dim panelled room with framed pictures on the wall behind the stage.
Wall detail. Kept because the framed picture behind the stage may identify the room.
A singer and guitarist on a blue-lit stage before a painted backdrop.
Blue wash, backdrop unidentified. Possibly the Palais Rialto after the 2015 refit.
The collection
Photographs
1,411
Photographers known
19
Undated
604
Of the Chandelier Room
2neither negative survives

Photographs, negatives, programmes, tickets and posters from any engagement since 1991 are welcome. Anything sent in is copied and returned.

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