Along with fugitive guitarist Ricky Harrison (not his real name), their mutual discovery of reggae, as rare as black skin on the pub rock circuit of the time, would emphasise the otherness, as well as the Black revolutionary spirit, that helped them make impact against the immense odds abovementioned.

From those fraught early gigs to bigger rooms opening for Cold Chisel, then British tourists the Clash and Ian Dury was an unprecedented journey for an Indigenous band in the early ’80s. A recurring theme among Robertson’s fellow witnesses is the gobsmacked first impression. No Fixed were tight, visually arresting, driven by passions upfront in songs such as We Have Survived, Black Mans Rights and Pigs.

“Can they say that?” onlookers whispered. Turns out they could, albeit at a price, and for the first time in our mostly blinkered lives, thousands of rock fans were unable to look away. Upcoming Labor member for Wills and soon-to-be prime minister Bob Hawke admitted he was unsettled by some of the lyrics, but he felt their importance acutely enough to officially launch the band’s EP, From My Eyes, anyway. Chisel, Goanna, Midnight Oil, Redgum and Men At Work were other champions then who lend their voices here.

Robertson savours every victory. The Rock Against Racism momentum, the Commonwealth Games slot, the AFI recognition (for Isaac’s landmark indie film Wrong Side of the Road), and the unlikely cultural exchange tours of eastern Europe in Australia’s Bicentennial year.

But alas, the thrill of the rock biog’s standard rise-to-glory arc was never within this band’s grasp. The wheels of progress turn, but they turn against sand, grinding and wobbling and falling off in a long back half that can only serve history at the expense of satisfying storytelling. Spelled out fearlessly, shockingly, sometimes hilariously by scores of voices concluding in an exhaustive gig-by-gig appendix, it’s a history vindicated in the telling.

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