Apart from the lovely selection of brand new gifts received for Christmas, we also checked out a couple of second-hand outlets while on holiday at Port Stephens on the New South Wales mid-north coast.

The first was a community-run recycling centre that turns people’s trash into income for the local community. In a couple of huge sheds they have a wide range of donated used goods for sale, including records, CDs and books. Just near the shelves full of LPs we found a box containing a large collection of old theatre and music performance programs and souvenir booklets – all in really good condition. Hunting through these we discovered this:

This is quite a thick tour magazine that was given away free at concert venues for the Paul McCartney New World Tour, which ran pretty much through the whole of 1993. It took in places like Canada, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Spain, the USA, UK, Japan, parts of South America, and Australia – hence this magazine/program being re-discovered in a shed in a little place called Soldiers Point! You can see one of the Sydney New World Tour set lists here. 

The tour was in support of the Off The Ground album: 

Inside the tour magazine there are some great articles and photos, including this shot below of the band at work in their rehearsal room – one which I’d not seen before. It also lists the range of instruments each person plays:

(click images to see larger versions)

There are also short bios for each band member, articles on key members of the backstage crew, plus the content goes much wider with sections dedicated to raising awareness about causes close to the McCartneys’ hearts, including saving a local hospital, the environment, and animal cruelty:In between are some interesting articles on previous projects, like this one on the Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) album from 1991:
All the content in the The New World Tour magazine is edited by Paul Du Noyer, who also featured in our Christmas list of books – and, coincidently, in another nice holiday find.

Every month the local church at Anna Bay just near Port Stephens holds a market where different traders can offer their goods for sale. One of them was a guy specialising in secondhand music books and CDs, where we found this book, also by Paul Du Noyer:

It’s a great reference book to have in the collection with the details and stories behind every song John Lennon released as a solo artist: 

First published in 1997, this revised and updated edition was released in 2010. Each song entry is accompanied by some interesting photos, and it is a really handy book to have when researching the work of John Lennon. I believe there’s an even more recent update called We All Shine On.