Category: Fandom

It’s the Fans, man


AC/DC Rock n Roll Fannation – Episode 1 from AC/DC Rock n Roll Fannation on Vimeo.

If you haven’t yet seen this great little mini-series on the fans of AC/DC – do! It’s highly recommended viewing. In the first episode (above) fans come from all over America and the world to assemble at Wilkes-Barre – not exactly the centre of the known universe – to see the band return to the stage after a long absence from public performance. This film crew stakes out the carpark to ask fans their stories. Some have come from Italy for this gig, they all reminisce about the first time they met the band, or saw “the boys” play. Invariably they are “fans for life”.

The architecture of this place – a vast carpark outside a walled stadium – is striking. One by one cars, utes, pickup trucks, buses pull up and an enormous family of fans assembles. They are pumped but very orderly – note the tidy queue they form to get into the stadium. They take care of each other, because for all, this is a very special moment.

The other morning I had a dream that someone told me about AC/DC tickets having already gone on sale for their Aussie gigs. In the dream I had a terrible sinking feeling, because I knew that if the word was reaching me in this way it meant that I had for sure already missed the boat… Perhaps it’s because I haven’t posted here for a while, so I was anxious about not having my finger on the pulse.

This week my friend Jim also sent me this very funny video from youtube. I love how this kid is simultaneously so self-conscious (I imagine he is looking at his own image on the computer screen as he performs) and so endearingly innocent. And contagious – his dog and his sister get in on the act…

(Bon+Sexy) = Queen Bee

queen bee at the cemetery

This whole Ugly / Sexy question sure has opened the door to some passionate commentary from the female fans (even the newish ones!).

But I wonder what men (besides his own charming lovechild son of course) make of Bon’s sexiness? For instance, I’ve been wondering, what do gay boys make of his devilish charm, down-home features, suggestive movements, high tight jeans, engaging eye-twinkles? Hot or Not?

Anyway, while we ponder that one, and wait for some more opinions to trickle through, one of the great discoveries this week has been “Queen Bee“. She sent me this charming email (reproduced below), accompanied by the photo above, and several other rather racy shots of herself and her musician pals at the cemetery. Thanks Queen, you’re definitely Fan-of-The-Week!

Ok, here’s her email…

Dear Lucas

I have been passionately watching the goings on at the art gallery and your own hand in this dynamic new Bon Scott Project and I wanted to know how I could participate???

I think I would be invaluable to this Project not only as a MAJOR fan but as the total awesome networker I’ve blossomed into.

I am a well educated young lady who is very resourceful and wanting IN big time. I have included some pics with my pals 21 Guns (local perth act and ac/dc cover band) and my international pals Machine Head. Hope you enjoy them, I would love to be able to contribute these or have you use them.

Great work you’ve been doing, keep it up

Cheers

Queenie

Ps- I have included my myspace pages so you can see additional pics of My Bon!!

Queen Bee Productions & Enterprises sends you her warm regards xx

Well, Queen Bee, how about you start your participation by heading down to the Ugly Sexy Factor night with a free ticket, take a few shots and write a short report for the blog? That’d be terrific, given that I am 3000 km away from Fremantle now…

AC/DC agnostic celebrates the ultimate live wire

acdc agnostic
This article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald Today. (Thanks to Vanessa for spending $1.30 on a newspaper and taking a photo of it on her back lawn for me…)

See the whole article online here (it’s also mirrored on The Age).

I had a nice chat with the journalist, Clare Morgan, yesterday. Continue reading “AC/DC agnostic celebrates the ultimate live wire”

Bon’s Web Walk

I’ve got one more story to post from Melbourne – about a trip to visit Bon’s loyal roadie Darcy in the Yarra Valley. It’s just in with the experts for “fact checking” before it goes live, but while we wait, lets think a little about writing technologies, shall we?

Bon wrote a shitload of letters. We must remember, kiddies, that in the 1970s there was no internet. There was no email. There were no blogs. If Bon were travelling the world playing gigs today, would he still send letters?

Would he run his own blog? (Now THAT would be something.) Would he, perchance, have his own webcam TV show, or a whacky Alice Cooper or Bob Dylan style radio broadcast? Or be the star of his own Osbournes reality TV show?

Speaking of reality TV …over at the Bon Scott Club (a yahoo group dedicated to keeping Bon’s hell-raising spirit alive forever), the fans are playing a game inspired by those “vote em off” shows, called “AC/DC Song Survivor”.
Continue reading “Bon’s Web Walk”

Authentic Value

stevo from gosnells
[Stevo with his “mint condition” voucher for a special AC/DC songbook. Bec the photographer is in the background. Read about my first encounter with Stevo here…]

Stevo from Gosnells is a one heckuva collector.

I got his number from Robi at the Fremantle Arts Centre. As is often the case with the Bon Scott tragics I’ve been meeting lately, my tentative phone call, which is supposedly just “to work out if you might be up for a visit”, results in an avalanche of information being transmitted right then and there on the phone.

“I’m the biggest collector I know!” Steve said, and then he launched into a big list of the AC/DC items he owns. I had to rein him in – a lot of the stuff he was saying didn’t make any sense to me at all. Blue labels? Certificates of authenticity?? Souvenir songbooks??? Bon’s face on a dollar bill????
Continue reading “Authentic Value”

The Unveiling

[THE FOLLOWING IS PART ONE OF AN UNFOLDING SERIES OF EPISODES FROM THE AUSSIE ROCK CELEBRATION CONCERT ’08, AT THE CONCLUSION OF WHICH WE WILL UNVEIL FOR YOU THE BRONZE STATUE OF BON SCOTT. WE APPRECIATE YOUR PATIENCE. BON HAS WAITED TWENTY EIGHT YEARS, FOR THIS MOMENT. SO AN EXTRA DAY OR TWO FOR THE BLOG ENTRY WON’T HURT YOU…]

Sent:
19 Feb 2008
16:38:46
Hey Mish wanna come
to a concert on sunday?
Sender
Lucas

—

Sent:
19 Feb 2008
16:45:53
Only if it is oz rock
and I can wear black
jeans
Sender
Mish

And so it came to pass. The big day had arrived. I was due to meet Mish around 4pm at the Claremont Showgrounds. After a rowdy bus and train journey with the Hamilton Hill Clan, I joined a conga line of black T shirts at the back of a seemingly endless queue, suffering under the baking sun. Somewhere up the line came the plaintive cry of a female voice: “Why do we wear dark clothing in this heat?”
Continue reading “The Unveiling”

The Hamilton Hill Clan

shimada singlet

Bec the photographer picked me up at noon. As she arrived I was just putting the finishing touches on my new Bon Scott Singlet, in preparation for the big concert. My mate Hana did these great Bon Scott Bulging Crotch and Mischievous Face drawings for me, and I turned ’em into an iron-on transfer. Although there are a gazillion AC/DC shirts for sale, they all tend to be a bit “samey”. But it’s safe to say that nobody else in the world has this particular piece of merchandise yet!

Bec was taking me to Hamilton Hill, a suburb ten minutes out of Fremantle, for a photoshoot with an AC/DC family. That’s right, a whole family. This was not just one or two diehards. We’re talking twenty six fans in an extended, three generation clan, gathered together to prepare themselves for the Bon Scott statue unveiling concert. They had discovered Bec’s advert in a local milk bar, and invited her to come along and shoot their pre-concert ritual. And I was lucky enough to go along for the ride.
Continue reading “The Hamilton Hill Clan”

Lost Saints

daniel and josh in freo
[Daniel and Josh waiting for the truck to arrive…]

Bec gave me the hot tip, so I raced down to the Fremantle train station to witness a re-enactment of AC/DC’s It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock and Roll). Way back in 1976, on this very day, 23rd of February, AC/DC shot a video clip of the song in downtown Melbourne. They travelled down Swanston Street on a flatbed truck, accumulating a small crowd along the way. The video clip, and the event, have become something of a local legend. A few years ago in Melbourne, a street called Corporation Lane was renamed AC/DC Lane as a memorial to this great moment in rock history.

I arrived just before noon. Small groups were starting to cluster around the station, hiding from the sun under shady trees, craning their necks this way and that in order to catch a first glimpse of the truck. I wandered over and took a photo of two eager young fans, Daniel and Josh. They’re only 16 years old. Daniel told me he’s been listening to AC/DC for four years now. He first became aware of their music while playing a video game, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. The song T.N.T. appears as background music to this skateboarding game, and that’s how Daniel got hooked. He also told me a curious story about his “Pop” and Bon hanging out together. The two rascals once “borrowed” a hotted up Holden to go joyriding around Freo. That must have been sometime in the 1960s I guess. Daniel’s Pop is now 62 years old.
Continue reading “Lost Saints”

Last Minute Hot Tip

Word on the street is that there will be a band playing Long Way to The Top, complete with bagpipes, parading through the streets of Fremantle today.

My secret informant told me to be at the train station at high noon. The parade will depart from the square outside the station and then wend its way through Freo’s “Cappuccino Strip”.

That’s all I know. See you all there!

– – –

UPDATE, 6pm Saturday:
lost saints play long way to the top
The Band was “The Lost Saints”. Click on the image above to see more photos, along with a few surprises! Today was a day for impromptu celebrity meetings, with none other than Bon’s old mate Mary Renshaw and former AC/DC bassist Mark Evans!! (Thanks to Bill and Ashley for making the introductions. I’ll write up the full story soon…)

PS:
I spent this arvo at a photoshoot with a bunch of terrific Scarborough bogans. Thanks to Ava for setting it all up for Bec Dagnell, the photographer. See my pictures of Bec shooting the fans here.

Bec’s doing a project where she shoots fans in their own environments, and a selection of these shots will be presented in the Bon Scott Project exhibition in May. If you want to book in for a shoot (its free!) get in touch (email lucas[at]bonscott.blog or just leave a comment below) and I’ll pass your details along to Bec…