I had front row seats to Frank in January 1999. My friend and I were both in our 30's and were amazed to find ourselves surrounded by people whose average age was 80 !!! Even Tom noticed. When he came out and first said hi to the audience he said "Great to see so many Sinatra fans here tonight, and lovely to see a couple of Tom Burlinson fans down there. For those who dont know me - I am not Frank - I am Tom." !!!!!!!
Being the "youngsters" in the audience had its advantage. Every time Tom referred to something from "the good ole days", he would lean down and pretend to whisper an explanation to us ! Like at one stage he was explaining how his mum bought his first record for him and it was a Sinatra one. he came tearing over to our side of the stage and knelt down and said "You wont remember records, they were big black musical things - much bigger than a CD and you could play both sides - you could even play them backwards."
To hear excerpts of Tom as Frank visit the fabulous website of
The Sydney All Star Big Band.
Click on the musical note.
All the below pic's are taken from newspaper reviews in The West Australian,
throughout January 1999, while Tom was in Perth.
