Back to the start for muso’s farewell

The life and achievements of a charttopping Palmerston North musician and scientist have been celebrated at an intimate memorial, during which his ashes were spread.

Keith Jefferies died in his late 60s earlier this year and his close friends, and Beagle Boys bandmates Te Miri Bevan and Paul O’brien, gave him a final farewell yesterday.

O’brien said they received a portion of Jefferies’ ashes from his widow to sprinkle over the section where the Cafe de Paris Inn stood, at the corner of Main and Domain streets, before it was demolished in 2016.

It was a launch pad for many Manawatu¯ bands, including the Beagle Boys, which performed its first big gig there in 1979.

One of the band’s biggest hits, In to Win, released in 1983, is still played before sports games.

Jefferies was also remembered as a scientist and engineer – he invented a key electronic component used in modern milking machines.

His ashes were spread where the bar’s stage used to be, as his two bandmates reminisced and performed songs in his honour.

Bevan said when Jefferies was on top he was everyone’s best mate and knew how to spread that feeling around.

Jefferies struggled to know what to do when times were bad, but he always came to his friends for support.

‘‘That’s why I felt closer to Keith than almost anyone.’’

The Beagle Boys who couldn’t be there were represented by the band shirt they proudly wore on tour – including when they opened for Dave Dobbyn’s Th’ Dudes.

Twenty years later, Dobbyn halfjokingly complained the Beagle Boys stole his thunder by blasting a raucous set that tuckered out the crowd.

Jefferies loved to play at the intersection of his passions for science, technology and music. And his sound system was a beautiful monster of exposed wires and tightly wound copper.

‘‘We used to hide behind it... Every time he turned it on it could have killed someone.’’ O’brien said.

‘‘But when ever that sound hit the crowd, it blew them away.’’