The venue was Sydney’s Chequers nightclub and they didn’t yet have a name, but they already had links to Aussie music royalty and were destined to become part of it themselves.
Angus and Malcolm’s brother was Easybeats’ (Friday on My Mind) founder George Young and wife Sandra gave the battery-related moniker.
The drummer was Colin Burgess who was in the Masters Apprentices (click here for a song you know, we promise).
Originally the singer was Dave Evans, before Bon Scott and now – yes still now – Brian Johnson.
He spoke to the Sydney Morning Herald, the paper he answered an ad in to join the band in 1973, ahead of the anniversary.
Evans said that first gig was a ragged affair, with tracks made up the night of the gig.
“Malcolm said, ‘Look, we’re about six or seven songs short, so make up some names and we’ll put them through the set’ type thing, you know,” he told the SMH.
“And they said, ‘Guys and Dave, make up the songs.’ So we made up songs on the spot and played them that night.”
Evans left the band in 1974 due to a clash with manager Dennis Laughlin, who he says wanted to be the singer, but clearly lacked something as he himself was the original singer of a big Aussie band – Sherbet – who only has one singer in Aussie memories, Darryl Braithwaite.
Evans’ career has included doing tributes to the band he was in, and with the band Rabbit which is legendary if you lived in Newcastle, Australia, at the right time. But really, the band he once fronted is too big to escape. And this song has too many reasons not to turn up really loud right now.
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