Face the Music

Andrew McManus is feeling pleased with himself. Almost cat-who-got-the-canary pleased. And why shouldn't he? Having just beaten every other concert promoter and landed Whitney Houston for one of the most anticipated tours of 2010, he's got every reason to be happy.

This isn't the first time he's pulled off such a feat. In 2004 McManus was the guy who brought Fleetwood Mac back to Australia after a 15-year absence (they're touring again this month). The tour put his company Andrew McManus Presents on the map.

"It's probably the most successful tour we had promoted," he says. "It made agents around the world look at us and see that we were a force in the market place."

And what a force. McManus has earned his place as one of the top four promoters in the country. His credits are a who's who of rock and pop and even opera (Pavarotti's farewell tour in 2005). If that's not impressive consider this: at 48, McManus is completely self-made.

It's the part of this Australian impresario's story most people don't know about or ignore, favouring instead the more meaty gossip-fuelled sex, drugs and rock'n'roll lifestyle of the man who got Snoop Dogg into the country and who counts Tommy Lee among his mates.

But should McManus ever write an autobiography, it would be as much about hard work as about hard living.

It all started with a hotel management course in the early 1980s in Queensland, and McManus later transferred to Tooths Hotels in NSW, where he played rugby with Warringah Rugby Club on the northern beaches in Sydney.

Then in 1985 he met Chrissy Amphlett, lead singer for the Divinyls, and he managed the band (he still looks after Chrissy) until 1997. McManus says the experience was a great foundation for the years ahead.

"The Divinyls gave me the ability to be in the same room with superstars and not go to Jell-O," he says. It also started his ride to the top. Along the way, more than 100 international acts have toured under his banner, including KISS, Blondie, Suzi Quatro, The Beach Boys and even Kelly Clarkson.

Today McManus can run his business for the most part over the phone, but it hasn't always been that way."Five or six years ago I would have to spend probably 30 per cent of the year in LA, NY or London pounding the pavement, knocking on agents' and managers' doors trying to secure talent and artists," he says.

Plenty of knockbacks later, McManus slowly became the power house he is today.

Houston isn't McManus' only big gig for next year. Guns N' Roses return Down Under and this time may take to the stage with INXS, a tour he describes as massive.

Even after 20 years, making deals of this calibre excites him. "Absolutely," McManus says. "Each year that turns by or rolls over you chase that next big deal or artist who's becoming available, and the actual catch and kill is as exciting and enthralling as it ever was."

While he may liken the art of the deal to hunting, he's not kidding. The world of the promoter is a predatory one.

It might be hard to imagine this guy as anything but unflappable, but McManus admits he gets nervous. "You get nervous if you have had some hiccups," he explains. "If you have made a loss or two, on the next deal it is important that you don't stub your toe.

"So you are probably more anxious and spend a bit more time on market research than you probably normally would. What happens is that you can over-analyse it (the deal) and then find out that you were too critical. At the end of the day it comes down to your gut feeling, whether it's going to work or not work. Live by the sword, die by the sword."

If 2008 was a big year for McManus professionally, it was an even bigger year for him personally. He and Perth lawyer Jacqueline O'Sullivan tied the knot.

Melbourne society turned out — curious to see this woman who had settled Andrew McManus down. The occasion made the papers and introduced a very private Jacqueline to a very public life, something she admits was overwhelming.

"I've been quite discreet in my life," she says. "The fact is I know a lot of people who are very high profile and always have done, but I haven't been one of those myself and I've purposely positioned myself to not be in any way high profile because I quite like my privacy."

But it's easy to see why McManus (and in turn Melbourne's social scene) was smitten. Jac, as she is known to friends, is a highly intelligent, straight-talking, self-confessed proud feminist who lists Amnesty International and the United Nations on her impressive C.V. She's also a gorgeous, leggy blonde whose conversations are punctuated with a deep laugh, and she has a wicked sense of fun. Still, Jacqueline says no one was more surprised by their whirlwind courtship and his marriage proposal than she was.

"We'd only been dating a couple of months at that point and marriage was far from my mind. So, yes, it (the proposal) was quite a surprise, but more surprising was that I said yes."

O'Sullivan moved with her three-year-old son Hunter to Melbourne, where she's taken on the job of being interior designer for their sprawling Toorak mansion. But don't for a second think she's a happy home-maker.

"I wish they'd find a new word for home-maker," she says. "I'm certainly interested in design and architecture and from that point of view the interior design of the house is a great project, but I'm not an interior designer or home-maker, I'm a lawyer."

The McManus home is still a work in progress, despite the impressive art on the walls. But while the design might be taking longer than Andrew would like ("Things move slow in Jac world," he jokes), his wife has thrown herself into her new role, taking charge of the look of the house — although she has left his home office and the bar alone.

But as in any new city, Melbourne has taken some getting used to.

"You don't make close friends overnight," she says. "It's a slow build, but I have been very surprised and overwhelmed at how lovely everyone has been and welcoming.

"I've lived in Sydney before and London, and I have to say people in Melbourne have been more open-armed and welcoming."

McManus shares his wife's sense of fun and admits that meeting and marrying her has helped him mellow.

"I really didn't understand at the first instance at how big a task it would be to have to change my ways and actually become Jac's partner but also a parental figure to Hunter," he says.

"So it's changed my view to everything I do, to my Saturday morning where I would get up late because I didn't have to worry about anyone other than myself and now I get up and make sure there is coffee next to Jac and Weetbix in Hunter's bowl and I am out bouncing on the trampoline before 9 o'clock before Hunter gets his adrenalin rush."

The future looks bright for McManus and his family, and although he may have mellowed and have balance, he's still very focused on bringing AM Presents to the international stage.

It's a hard task, but as Jacqueline says nothing will stop him.

"No, nothing stops him," she says. "He can be hit by an elephant and he can get up and live to see another day. I think that's quite amazing."

This article originally featured in Melbourne Weekly Magazine, December 2009. Written by Rick Molinsky.