There's no danger of that situation arising again as INXS prepares to return to the clubs for the first time in almost a decade. The band's May 14th show at the Phoenix sold out in a matter of minutes, which is, after all, the desired results of the back-to-the-bar bandwagon, ridden lately by waning arena-rockers like Bon Jovi and KISS.

Now that Hutchence, 33 is given to fits of nostalgia over the band's mystical early days.
"Actually, when I look back on it, what comes to mind is, I don't know how we did it," he says of the late- '70s / early- '80s, when INXS would play up to 300 shows a year in Australia alone.
"I've got friends in bands who are in the same position as we were back then, and its hard to imagine myself in that situation. But," he adds, "I guess music gets you through the night."
Although their most recent album, Welcome to Wherever You Are, is only eight months old, the band already has the follow-up in the can. (Working title: Full Moons Dirty Hearts.) That album, which Hutchence describes as "pretty stright up" INXS music, will come out in August or September, when they'll embark on a full-blown arena tour.

Despite once thriving on the punishing club curcuit, Hutchence isn't convinced it's easier to play to 700 people than to 70,000.
"no, it's not, actually. The stakes are higher with 70,000 people, of course. I mean, a bad night at, say, Wembley Stadium is a really bad night," he laughs. "But I do think a band can really be a band in a small place. You can look at each other and talk to each other instead of me being on a 60-foot riser 100 feet from the rest of the band." But aren't musicians deluding themselves if they think they can recapture the naive spirit of those early years?
"Well, we're definitely not as naive," agrees Hutchence, "but yeah, I think we're recapturing it."
"We have a plus, though."
Which is? "Which is, we're not trying to get out of the clubs anymore," he said. "We're trying to get back into them."