Chunky Custard parties on from Adelaide in 1990, riding retro music loops with colour, movement and fun
Chunky Custard kept itself fresh by tuning into the loops of retro music taste, with colour and movement and a touch of the outrageous.
Adelaide’s Chunky Custard was still promoting itself as “Australia’s hottest party band” in 2021 – 31 years after it was founded in 1990.
From an idea spawned at a fancy dress party in the late 1980s, Chunky Custard (the name came from sketch comedy television show Australia You’re Standing In It) was formed by Nat Giancaspro and Ian Blake with invaluable launch promotion in 1990 from an ally in Jeff Allis, a disc jockey on radio SAFM and host of Trax television music show. (Allis later became national programming director of Austereo radio network and founded Boost Juice with wife Janine.).
Chunky Custard’s shows at North Adelaide’s Old Lion and the Cathedral Hotel cashed in from the 1990s thriving retro music with Grease and ABBA having their cycles of popularity. With lead singer Becky Blake, colour and movement were keys to the show’s success with about 20 costume changes creating different characters.
Chunky Custard weren’t averse to creating the outrageous and controversial. It paid streakers or male strippers to run across the stage naked at gigs, including one of the biggest: the Grand Prix ball attended by 3,500 at the Adelaide Convention Centre in 1992. At a Queen’s Birthday show, a character dressed as the Queen on stage for the whole time until she caught fire while blowing out candles on the cake.
Among the different performers to work with the group were Debora Krizak, whose entry into Australian musical theatre was a role in A Chorus Line and starring opposite Caroline O’Connor in Anything Goes.
The advent of poker machines saw hotel publicans unwilling to spend money on production to support live music. This meant Chunky Custard had to switch to mainly corporate shows, outdoor concert, private party or dinner and packages such as 70’s Disco Diva Show, Rocky Horror Show, The 80s Glam Rock Show, The Village People, Suzie Q, Bee Gees, Spice Girls and Wham.
