Princeton Club rules from early 1960s in a cultural transform of Adelaide around rock'n'roll/pop music

The Delairs playing at the Princeton Club in the Burnside ballroom.
Images courtesy City of Burnside and musicminder.com.au

Hairdresser Steve Ackerie’s barber chair was set up in the Burnside ballroom foyer to trim the locks of aspiring patrons who lacked the surfie or college boy look to be allowed to buy a Saturday night ticket for Adelaide’s Princeton Club (and on Thursday nights at the Greek Hall in Adelaide).

Such was the cultural transform set off in the early 1960s of the Princeton phenomenon that started at the Largs Bay Sailing Club  where Ron Tremaine was playing piano with The Delairs. That’s where he was invited by the venue organisers Tony Bowden, John Ferrier and Eric Taylor to join their team that started the Princeton Club.

The club at Burnside ballroom would showcase top acts from interstate and overseas as well as the best Adelaide bands. Compere was mainly 5AD’s Bob Francis but also Artie Verco, Tony Pilkington and John Vincent. Bands included the Penny Rockets, The Delairs, Ray O'Connor, Four Tones, Barrie McCaskill and The Clefs, Bev Harrell, The Twilights, The Harts, Carol Sturtzel, and The Gingerbread Men.

The Princeton group also bought the Boomerang Club at Brighton Town Hall that became Ken Messenger’s Miami Club Top-40 venue with Tweed Harris’s Clefs, vocal group The Viscounts, Barrie McAskill and The Drifters with Glenise Shearman, Hayden Burford and compered by 5KA’s Stuart Jay. The Miami also presented major Australian guest artists weekly.

The Princeton ventured into the Cloudland Ballroom at Hackney and opened Rockville with Barrie McAskill and the Fabulous Drifters, with Jill Freeman, Daryl Morton and The Twilights. McAskill later moved to the KT Club in the Kings Ballroom where Graham Bartlett and The Key Tones were the hosting group.

Other venues inspired by Princeton included the Kommotion Club at Australia Hall (later Royalty Theatre, Angas Street Adelaide), the Service to Youth Council’s Oxford Club at the Caledonian Hall, King William Street, Adelaide, with other clubs at the Octagon Theatre, Elizabeth, and St Clair and St Bernard youth centres.
In the late 1960s came Big Daddy’s in the Claridge Arcade basement, Gawler Place, Adelaide; the 20 Plus Club on Grote Street, Adelaide, and Burnside Town Hall; and Sargeant Peppers in Flinders Street, Adelaide.