Songs like Holiday in Cambodia and California Uber Alles made the Dead Kennedys underground legends in thousands of sharehouses by the time they toured Australia. When singer Jello Biafra threw himself into the audience at the Manly Vale Hotel in Sydney, everyone scattered and he crashed to the floor – crowd surfing hadn’t caught on yet in Australia.

The reception wasn’t quite so warm in Queensland, where police arrested black drummer D. H. Peligro on the street for “public drinking”. “His can of beer was unopened,” Biafra told US magazine Maximumrocknroll. “When Ray, our guitarist, tried to intervene, he was thrown in another police car and taken away.” The tour continued after the drummer was bailed out by promoter Roger Grierson but the incident left its mark.

“Summing up Brisbane, all I can say is it was the closest thing to a heavy, heavy, junta-style police state I’ve ever been in,” said Biafra.