The Planets

-this is from the Telegraph January 2nd 1964 The band who would be the main band @ Teen City were the Planets who by that time had been on the Brisbane music scene since 1959 when they were formed and had played their very first gig @ the Nundah Memorial Hall on May 22nd 1959. The Planets were the top bands in Brisbane at that time and had played around Brisbane including Buranda,the Railway institute,AHEPA Hall,Cloudland,city Hall as well as the Gold Coast, Northern NSW,Toowoomba and Warwick as well as being the first Brisbane rock group to be bill on the Lee Gordon show when they were the support act for American singer Fabian @ Festival Hall Brisbane October 15th 1959. The planets were also played @ Birdland which they were the main band for a few years which they would work with the Sydney performers as well as the local singers including Billy Thorpe who would go on to great success with the Aztecs and they were the band on the local music show Teen Beat on QTQ 9 in brisbane which was hosted by local Disc Jockey Geoff Atkinson who was from 4BC as well as doing appearances on Bandstand and six O'Clock Rock. The line up of the Planets at the time Teen City was opened were- Bobby Rich(Rob Richards)on Drums, Brian Gagen on sax, Len Austin on sax, Steve Neale on Piano, Mike Casey on Guitar and Vance Lendich who replaced original bass player John Reid and other members who had been in the group were Johnny Pickering aka Johnny Pal on vocals,Ron AShton on drums as well and Rob TOnge on guitar and also later Keith Johnson joined the group on bass during 1964 when Mike Casey left which Vance switched to guitar. The Planets would eventually disbanded in 1965