Bill Anseline: From Fannys bouncer to doctor for the stars

He's been the go-to medical guy on tour for Taylor Swift, Pink, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Blink 182, Maroon 20, Katy Perry, Drake, The Black Keys and more.

But it's not for the glory. He's got pages of selfies with the stars on his Instagram page, but fewer than 1000 followers. It's about a tight-knit web of relationships.

Perhaps even more satisfying to him is his role as team doctor for boxers Tim Tszyu and Nikita Tszyu, which came on the back of the same role for their dad, world champion Kostya Tszyu. Those relationships sprang from his four-decades-plus friendship with Glen Jennings, who has managed all three of the boxers.

It's been quite a journey for Anseline, now 60, who grew up on Gwen Parade, Raymond Terrace. He spent 14 years working by night as a bouncer in Newcastle pubs and attending university by day, eventually earning four degrees, including medicine.

"That was my life for 14 years. I can count on my hand the nights I had off," he says in an interview during a visit to Newcastle in April.

"I worked at Fannys or The Castle from 8 at night 'til 3 in the morning, Wednesday to Sunday, for 14 years. And put myself though all my degrees. I'd come home, sleep, get up, do some book work, go to university, come home, train, do some book work, go to work. That's the discipline, the route I took."

It was Jennings, founder of National Events Services (NES), who gave Anseline a job as a bouncer. Of course, Jennings had become a provider of security and bodyguards to VIPs and entertainers, too.

And thus, with his combined background in security and medicine, Anseline was a natural fit for the world of touring.

His first job on tour in 1992: Guns n Roses, particularly looking after Axl Rose.

"I became a good mate with Duff McKagan and Slash. That was really interesting. That was in Australia," he says.

"It was surreal. But, having said it was surreal, it was real. I had to use my university of life skills and my medical skills to navigate that tour, because there's a lot of moving parts, a lot of moving parts."

More than 30 years later, music touring has become a lot more professional, he says. There is no room for mistakes - as tour doctor he's responsible for the health of everyone involved - up to 300 people.

About the only place you won't find Dr Bill is in front of the stage. He made a rare exception recently when Elton John asked for his presence.

"He said 'Can you sit down there and watch'. And that was one of the rare times I sat and watched a concert," Anseline says.

He's made quite a few friends along the way, and names dropped in the interview come casually.

He plays a recording of Stevie Nicks in one of her shows: "I want to dedicate this song [Landslide] to Dr Bill. Over the years this amazing doctor taught me so many different things that's helped keep your health together and being able to do this until you're 9000 vampire years old and, you laugh, it's really true. This guy has been so helpful to us over many years so I'd like to dedicate this to you, Dr Bill."

"I've saved her life twice, you know," Anseline says. "I did something good."

He is the guy you never see in front of house. But he "hovers" everywhere else, keeping an eye, reading intel, making plans for moving the "principal", as he calls the artists, from point A to point B without interruption.

"I've been through some really dark times with all of them," he says.

"With Dave [Grohl], when he started the Foo Fighters up, when Taylor [Hawkins] died, we had some really dark conversations ..."

While he is always on board in Australia, his business, Hemisphere Management Group, oversees tours worldwide through an extensive network of medical and allied health professionals around the world.

Yes, he carries a medical bag ("I've got the kitchen sink in there. You're Johnny on the spot," he says). But the service is much, much more than that.

"The important part is we have good pharmacies in place in case we need to do something, we have radiologists - like last night, like at 2 o'clock in the morning, they'll go do an MRI on an artist. This is 24/7.

"We have a look at the intel before they get here for us to try to find out.

"It's professional and it's medical and it's encrypted. It's safe. Those sorts of things you can't let out. A breach of that sort of stuff can cause all sorts of pain."

Likewise, when he does travel overseas with an act, he relies on his networks around the world.

"Yes, you need the local intel. A doctor can't come here and start prescribing stuff for acts. They can treat within, but the bigger stuff you have to outsource. So you've got relationships," he says.

"You are the ringmaster. You triage, and then you bring the teams in. You have to make sure there is continuity within that. You've got people who've been doing this for years and they are the best in the world."

Meanwhile, Anseline maintains a medical practice on the Gold Coast, and has his fingers in a lot of pies.

"I do a lot of charitable work, mentoring. I train and support 150 doctors. I do property. I love clinic stuff. I love teaching. It's about me giving back, and leaving a scratch on the earth, you know," he says.

"And to do it under the radar as much as I can. Otherwise, people perceive you are trying to grandstand. It's about mentoring, giving all my experience. This is what Glen [Jennings] and I do. We train security, we train doctors, we train our staff."

As passionate as Anseline is about so many "adventures", his love of boxing and the excitement of being involved with the best in the world gets much of his attention.

His visit to Newcastle included two days of workshopping with Team Tszyu, breaking down Tim Tszyu's defeat in March in Las Vegas to Sebastian Fundora. It was Tszyu's first defeat in 25 fights, costing him his WBO super welterweight belt.

The fight was tortuous, with Tszyu suffering a scalp cut early in the fight and battling on for the rest of the match with an unstoppable flow of blood from the wound on top of his head hampering his eyesight. Anseline was ringside with Jennings, knowing there was no way to stop the bleeding from the top of the head.

"I'm a surgeon, too," Anseline says. "I operate on tumours on the head. People injure this area - it's a plexus of blood vessels, arteries and veins - when you hit that and open it up, you can't stop it.

"It bleeds and splits, so Tim couldn't see for 10 rounds. That was at the end of the second round. I had no control, the boxing commission [Nevada Athletic Commission] runs it. The injury there, for me to treat it, infiltrate it, would take lots of adrenaline, which constricts the vessel, and something to take the pain away ... In a utopian world, that is what you would do. And put pressure on it for 10 to 15 minutes. Then you do deep-stitching, and then stitching over the top.

"In one minute, in the corner, you can't do that. You gotta get the guy prepped for the next round. It was never going to stop."

Anseline believes Tim Tszyu is a better boxer than Kostya was, and he's keen on guiding him to greater heights.

He sees the role of Jennings and himself as "try to keep them centred. Give them information they need and give them skills".

"Greatness doesn't come from within the ring. It comes from what they do outside also," he says.

Anseline says Jennings and he are keen to provide guidance.

"They need the vast experience we have in life. We are self-made men, nothing was given to us," he says.

"At a young age, we knew we were different, we wanted to set a good example. We could have gone any way in life. But we bunkered down together, and this is who we are now. And now we look after the biggest in the world."