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?”
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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”

Bon Scott Statue Finally Unveiled!

scottish lads with their tattoos
[Kev, Andy and Ian from Fife, Scotland, with their commemorative tattoos…]

It was a huge day. Great to meet and mosh with so many fans.

I’ve uploaded my photos from the concert here. Please send in your own photos, or links to your videos on youtube, or your reports on the day!

Just leave a comment below or email me at lucas[at]bonscott.blog) and I’ll post your stuff up here!

In the meantime, I’ll be slaving over my keyboard to tell you about my version of events! Stay tuned…
Cheers
Lucas

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.
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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…

Heavy Metal Striptease…

bon scott statue article in west australian

More bits of the bronze statue continue to be revealed in a kind of heavy metal striptease leading up to Sunday’s unveiling. The above article in the West Australian newspaper today almost gives away the whole game! Click on the photo to see it larger…

There was also a broadcast on ABC local radio this morning. They haven’t released it as a podcast unfortunately, but you can see a small snippet and photo here.

And over at AC/DC news, the tributes have been flowing in since Bon’s anniversary on Tuesday. Interesting to see several comments left by female fans, and one by a 15 year old!

AND! As if that wasn’t enough, a text message came through a few days ago from my brother Jono’s mate Minky, who said she’d seen a bronze statue of a lady on the Perth foreshore who was dressed to thrill in an AC/DC shirt. A fitting homage to Bon, methinks. Unfortunately, by the time I chased up the rumour, Minky said the shirt had disappeared. However, thanks to the erstwhile Jon Talisman from the Bon Scott Yahoo group, a photo has emerged! And here it is… Apparently that lady is called Eliza, and thanks to some local scalliwags, she’s a statue of many guises…

If its print-media articles you want, I’ve uploaded a few more that Jasmin photocopied for me:
–Rolling Stone magazine article from May 2007, page 1, page 2.
-An article entitled “Ride On” by journalist Matthew Hogan, from an unknown publication. This piece is based on interviews with very first (pre-Bon) AC/DC singer Dave Evans, who will be performing at the concert on Sunday.
-A similar article in Perth music weekly Xpress.

World Exclusive! The Bon Scott Statue in Progress!

greg with bon moulds
[Greg, the sculptor, with the moulds he used in the casting of the Bon Scott Bronze Statue…]

Following the advice of Simmo, a guy I met at Bon’s grave on Tuesday, Jasmin and I snuck around to Greg the sculptor’s studio to check out the progress on Bon’s bronze effigy. We stumbled upon a bustle of activity, with several assistants busily grinding, welding, and polishing various bits of the statue.
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At the Cemetery

a sip for bon

[David giving Bon a sip…]

Yesterday was the anniversary of Bon Scott’s death. I kept a vigil all day in Fremantle Cemetery, resting in the shade of a tree near Bon’s grave.

Even though I had never been to the cemetery before, I was aware that Bon’s grave, like Jim Morrison’s in Paris, has long been the most popular slab in Freo’s city of the dead. Fans from all over the world make their way to Bon’s final resting place to pay their respects.

Rumour has it that a few weeks back, none other than heavy metal legends Iron Maiden were chauffeured to the cemetery to have a drink with Bon. Apparently this kind of thing happens all the time.
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BUST!

I’m sitting at Sydney airport with only 9% battery life on my computer, waiting for an aeroplane. With some disappointment, I crawled out of bed this morning, and rather than packing the camping gear into the back of an old Kingswood painted matt black and emblazoned with an AC/DC logo, I headed off to catch a plane to Perth. My quest to find a travelling companion for the pilgrimage to Fremantle was thwarted by the breakneck speed of contemporary life: my Bon or Bust! campaign has ended in Bust!

So, although my journey is to be pragmatic rather than filled with unexpected adventure, flying means I can be in WA today, where I will head straight to the Fremantle Cemetery, and visit Bon’s grave. Tomorrow (the 19th of February) is the anniversary of Bon’s death. So I expect there may be some fans visiting the graveside to pay their respect, and I, your erstwhile reporter, will be there to meet them!

This week I also hope to meet Doug, the passionate fella who runs the West Australian Bon Scott Fanclub, who did all the fundraising and campaigning for the Bronze statue. And I shall tell you about Rob, a fan from Croydon Park in Sydney’s suburbs, who sat me down last week, and showed me a bunch of very very funny AC/DC video clips he’d taped from Rage.